


Orbital Decay

by eleanor_lavish



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Astronauts, Blow Jobs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Frottage, I Can't Believe I Finally Finished This Thing, Korean War, Lost Love, M/M, NASA, Pining, Science Boyfriends, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1876536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Shut up,” Danny says with a smile. “You’re the worst best friend ever.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“That would be true if I wasn’t about to give you a Kelly heads-up,” Steve murmurs, and Danny’s eyes fly open. “He’s at your two o’clock.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Sure enough, the most frustratingly enigmatic and attractive member of the NASA engineering team is pushing open the back gate of Mueller’s yard. He’s wearing khakis and brown leather shoes, but instead of his usual crisp, dark jacket, Chin Ho Kelly is wearing a soft, green polo shirt, sleeves tight around his biceps. Danny’s palms start sweating. He’s going to blame the heat.</i>
</p>
<p>It's 1964, and Dr. Danny Williams has a mission to complete. Though, if he's honest with himself, he might actually have two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbital Decay

**Author's Note:**

> Immense and always and forever thanks to Schuyler, who was my cheerleader and beta on this for ACTUAL, LITERAL YEARS. I started this thing in 2011, and walked away when the canon of the show started to bum me out. But this story took on a life of it's own, and in the end I had to finish it. 
> 
> Much love to Oliviacirce and Allecto, who gave me encouragement and weren't afraid to say "omg just _write it_ " a few thousand times. And all my thanks and apologies to everyone else who has had to sit through my hand-wringing about this story for YEARS. HONESTLY. YEARS. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it - I am glad to say that I certainly do.

_“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”_  
\- President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

**August 1964  
Houston, Texas**

It’s hot. It’s ungodly, ridiculously, stupidly hot, and Danny sighs unhappily as he sits back in his deck chair in a shaded corner of the yard, beer bottle raised to his lips. Danny’s lived in Texas for nearly two years so this shouldn’t be a huge shock to the system anymore. But the oppressive air of Houston in late summer is still anathema to his Jersey roots, where hot days like this were few and far between and he could escape them with a long drive to the beach. Boston was never this hot, even the summers he spent in grad school hunched over the MIT computing station in a windowless room, carefully counting out his punch cards. And then there was London, where heat like this would no doubt send the entire population into an orderly, repressed panic. But London was a lifetime ago, before Danny’s dream job had clashed spectacularly with Rachel’s, landing him in Houston with a little girl, a battered Chevy and a wardrobe completely unsuited to Houston weather - no pun intended. Danny pulls at his tie, feeling the sticky slide of sweat under his collar, and sighs again.

“You’re not still complaining about the humidity, are you, Danny? It’s almost fall.” Steve McGarrett drops into the chair next to him with a grin. He’s wearing a grey Air Force t-shirt and faded jeans turned up at the ankles, his usual leather jacket abandoned in this godforsaken _heat_. Danny frowns at him.

“You know you’re dressed like a teenager,” he says, and Steve grins wider. “You also know that Mueller is throwing this barbeque and that the shuttle line-up isn’t actually set yet? You aren't shuttle commander yet."

“Eh,” Steve shrugs. “It’s a technicality.” And Steve’s right, of course - he’s already commanded two suborbital missions and has been with Gemini since the Mercury days. He’s the best man for the job even out of a pool of overqualified fly boys, but the crew of Gemini IV is going to be Danny’s to oversee, and he really doesn’t want Steve fucking up his hand-picked shuttle team by acting like an overgrown child in front of George Mueller. 

“Would it kill you to dress like an adult? Just once? For me?” Danny asks, because they talked about this just yesterday - Danny even offered to lend Steve a tie.

“For you, Danny?” Steve's eyelashes flutter and he bites his lip. “I would do just about anything.”

Danny pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re a jackass.” 

“Danno, what’s a jackass?” Grace bounds up to them and Steve laughs out loud, delighted. 

“Nothing, kiddo - “ Danny starts, but Steve rolls over him with, “It’s another name for a donkey, Gracie.”

“Danno thinks you’re a donkey?” Grace asks, nose wrinkling as she giggles.

“Looks that way, yes,” Steve answers before scooping her up into his lap. Danny lets the jackass thing go - Grace probably won’t... or, yeah, she’ll definitely remember it, and probably bring it up again at a really inopportune time. For now Danny’s happy to watch her chatter with Steve, telling him about the new dress that their housekeeper Anna sewed for her, and about how the third grade is going to be way harder than second grade but still not too hard, and about her plans to swim every day at Pete’s house, now that she’s home from her summer abroad. Joan Mueller announces there is ice cream on the patio and Grace is off like a shot, leaving Danny and Steve to their beers in a quiet corner of the yard.

“Pete?” Steve asks Danny, eyebrows raised.

“He’s eight,” Danny says, his eyes closing. “He’s harmless.”

“Or at least he’s still small enough that you can be intimidating.”

“Shut up,” Danny says with a smile. “You’re the worst best friend ever.”

“That would be true if I wasn’t about to give you a Kelly heads-up,” Steve murmurs, and Danny’s eyes fly open. “He’s at your two o’clock.”

Sure enough, the most frustratingly enigmatic and attractive member of the NASA engineering team is pushing open the back gate of Mueller’s yard. He’s wearing khakis and brown leather shoes, but instead of his usual crisp, dark jacket, Chin Ho Kelly is wearing a soft, green polo shirt, sleeves tight around his biceps. Danny’s palms start sweating. He’s going to blame the heat.

“He doesn’t usually come to these things, does he?” Steve asks, like he doesn’t know the answer. Like they don’t both know that the grudging respect a lot of the NASA establishment has for Dr. Kelly, with his sharp features and his soft, clipped accent, doesn’t extend past the lab, and certainly doesn’t extend to Saturday afternoon barbeques. The casual racism gets under Danny’s skin like an itch, and one of the reasons he’s friends with Steve is that he knows Steve feels it too. The Muellers are good people, though, and Chin always gets an invite, even if he doesn’t often accept them. 

“This one’s a big deal,” Danny reminds him. This is Mueller’s ‘thank you’ to the whole team that worked on the Gemini 1 test, and Chin’s work had been invaluable. There would have been more tongues wagging had he _not_ shown up. Danny looks up to see Chin shaking hands stiffly with Mueller. There’s a lovely woman with him, her features rounder than Chin’s, her face softened by a warm smile. She’s in a red and white sundress, her black hair falling pin-straight down her back. She touches Chin’s elbow as she shakes Mueller’s hand, and something in Chin relaxes. 

“Who is that?” Steve breathes out behind him. 

“Must be his cousin, Kono,” Danny says, and he smiles. Chin’s baby cousin is the only personal thing he really talks about at work. “She graduated from Wellesley in May, and now she’s starting the grad program at Rice. Mechanical engineering.”

“Family business?” Steve says with a smile.

“Something like that. She’s living with him until she gets settled.”

“I bet she could use someone to show her around town,” Steve says, levering himself out of his chair and running his hand through his hair.

“Oh, no. _No,_ ” Danny says, pointing up at him. “You are _not_ going to hit on Chin’s cousin.”

“You’re looking at the same woman I am, right, Danny? The gorgeous one with the legs that go for miles?”

“She’s a Kelly, McGarrett. The Kellys are off-limits.” _To both of us,_ he doesn’t add, but Steve sighs at him and reaches down to pull him out of his seat.

“You’re a killjoy, Williams.”

“And you’re still a jackass.”

*

It doesn’t matter that Danny is Steve’s best friend and asked him not to, or that Steve has an IQ approaching 200 - Danny knows as soon as Steve meets Kono Kelly, their eyes locking somewhere over Danny’s head, they’re all in trouble.

“Commander,” Chin says evenly, though his eyes slide to where Steve is taking his sweet time letting go of Kono’s hand. Kono just looks amused. 

“You must be Commander McGarrett,” she says with a nod. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Don’t believe a word of it,” Steve smiles at her, smug and gorgeous. Danny stifles a groan.

“So... I shouldn’t believe that you gave yourself a concussion climbing out of the test module, or I shouldn’t believe that you nearly set the whole testbed on fire because you forgot to power down before lunch?”

“They were serving real lobster rolls,” Steve says, looking more off-kilter than Danny’s seen him in months. “And you _told_ her that?” he points at Chin accusingly.

“What? It was funny,” Chin replies, deadpan, and Danny snorts. “This,” Chin says, ignoring Steve’s indignant huff entirely, “is Dr. Danny Williams.”

“MIT, right?” Kono asks, sticking out her hand and shaking Danny’s firmly. She doesn’t have any accent at all, Danny notes, just a sweet, all-American smile and a glint in her eyes that Danny suspects is genetic. “I spent a summer in the lab with Dr. Adams - he still talks about your research on vacuums.”

“Yeah, hi,” Danny manages; Chin is smiling at him warmly. “Chin’s told me some of what you’re working on with electric engines. Sounds like promising stuff.”

“Eh, it’s not as cool as building rocket ships, but for the rest of us who are stuck with regular cars, my engines work pretty well.”

“You like cars, huh?” Steve asks, finally recovered enough to jump back in the conversation.

“You could say that,” Chin says with a laugh. “Lucky I got her into engineering, or she would have wanted to be a stock car driver.”

“I could still be a stock car driver,” she replies, hands on her hips. “I still hold the race record in Pasadena.”

“I don’t think they keep records for drag races in Pasadena,” Chin says with a shake of his head. Kono crosses her arms. “But yes, you probably do.”

“Wait, wait,” Danny cuts in. He’s not sure he’s hearing right. “When were you in drag races?”

“High school,” Kono says. “I was bored. Chin made me stop my senior year, though.”

“You get in a little over your head?” Steve asks, and Kono fixes him with a cool look.

“I won so many pink slips we ran out of room for cars in the driveway,” she answers. She’s looking at Steve like she’s daring him to question her, but Steve’s just blinking in shock. Chin glances at Danny again, his eyes dancing, and Danny feels his face get warm.

“We should go say hi to Gordo,” Danny says, trying to throw his friend a lifeline and get himself away from Chin’s suddenly-too-close gaze at the same time. Steve lets himself be led away from the Kellys, stumbling a little as they walk.

“Danny,” Steve says, his voice hushed.

“Don’t say it,” Danny grits out.

“I think I’m in love.”

Danny grabs another beer from the cooler and resists the urge to slam his head into the wall. “Tell me about it,” he replies, but Steve isn’t paying any attention, his eyes tracking Kono as she walks confidently across the lawn at Chin’s side. Danny gives in, and lets himself do the same.

*

When Danny signed his divorce papers three years ago, he would have sworn an affidavit that he would never fall in love again. He’d loved Rachel so much, which only made the leaving harder, and the only reason he wasn’t a complete basketcase at the end of it was that Rachel had agreed to let Grace live with him in the US, and not push on her original idea of a boarding school in the UK. 

“I am a product of boarding school, Daniel,” she said to him over a civilized cup of tea, her eyes sharp, but her words less so.

“And my point has been made,” Danny shot back, then backpedaled when he saw her eyes narrow. “She’s half mine, Rach,” he noted, and he couldn’t quite keep the desperation out of his voice. “And if you were staying put, it would be another conversation, but you won’t be in London for over half the year. Gracie needs stability now more than anything, and she needs to know that we aren’t dumping her along with this marriage.”

“I know,” Rachel said, her perfectly manicured hands curling around her cup. She looked sad, and Danny almost felt sorry for her, until he remembered she’d ripped his heart out. “I get her for Christmas, and a part of the summer holidays,” she’d conceded, and it was a damn sight better deal than Danny had expected, so he took it and ran, all the way to Houston.

He showed up at NASA HQ in 1962, eager for a chance to prove himself and expecting the rest of his quiet, solitary life to revolve around two things: jet engines and Grace. 

Then he met Steve McGarrett, a crazy test pilot-turned-astronaut with a hard-on for stupid situations. After a month of exchanging what Danny thought were insults, he attached himself to Danny like a fucking monkey and declared himself Danny’s best friend, much to Danny’s chagrin and Grace’s delight. And not six months later, Dr. Chin Ho Kelly transferred in from a research post at CalTech, with his beautiful smile and his infinitely capable hands, and Danny found himself fighting off feelings he thought were long buried.

There had been guys before Rachel - not many, but a few - scattered between girlfriends with smart mouths and bobbing ponytails. They’d been clandestine not-quite relationships, fumbling and scorching all at once. A fling with a boy at MIT almost sent Danny running back to New Jersey his sophomore year, desperately fearing they’d been discovered, knowing his whole future was on the line if they were. After that, Danny kept his distance from that world, kept his eyes on his Ph.D., and felt rewarded when he met Rachel and the spark between them lit up his whole body. She was what he’d been waiting for, until they both burned out. 

Then he met Chin and, far from an all-consuming fire, his feelings for Chin grew from a smolder to a low, dull roar over those first long months. It was a beautiful kind of torture.

Steve noticed, because as much as Steve projected an aura of ‘functional moron with a killer smile,’ he was actually pretty fucking smart. “You could ask him to join us for lunch,” Steve said one day, dropping his tray on the cafeteria table next to Danny’s. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Danny had managed, trying to play it off, trying not to let Steve see how much that idea both excited and terrified him. 

“I talked to Gloria in records.” Steve took a piece of garlic bread off Danny’s tray and raised his eyebrows innocently when Danny glared at him. “She says he came over from South Korea right at the end of the Conflict. He worked with planes over there, and was good enough that the Army paid his way through grad school to get him on their payroll. He’s been in California for the last few years. Oh, and he’s single. Never been married.”

“That’s... okay? Why do I need to know this?” Danny asked, even though he had a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. 

“If you’re going to insist on pining from a distance, Danny, the least I can do is give you some decent intel for your fantasies.” Danny stared at Steve in horror but Steve just grinned at him and stole another piece of bread. “Seriously, we should ask him to eat with us.”

“You don’t - Steve, this isn’t funny,” Danny had said, because this had to be some sick joke, Steve couldn’t actually be suggesting - 

“I’m not an idiot,” Steve had replied, his voice pitched low and his eyes suddenly serious. “And I’m not a bigot. I’ve got your back, Danno, always.”

And that is how Danny Williams found himself with an incredibly unqualified yenta for his terrifying crush on Chin Ho Kelly.

Now, Danny should be grateful for anything that distracts Steve from trying to shove Chin and Danny into conversations and enclosed spaces together. But he’s pretty sure that Steve pursuing Kono Kelly is going to get them all in a world of trouble.

*

“You think she’ll like it?” Steve asks, and Danny groans, leaning his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“It’s a bag of spark plugs, Steve. What’s not to like?” Danny’s being an ass, he knows this, but he’s also tired of being asked for his advice on Steve’s love life, especially at work. Especially when Chin is liable to come walking by any moment, like this one, and say - 

“Hey, McGarrett. Why do you have a bag of spark plugs?”

“Um, nothing. No reason,” Steve covers poorly, and Danny throws him a bone.

“He’s got a project for them at home,” Danny says to Chin, and “at home” is enough to get Chin to nod and stop asking. Chin doesn’t give a damn if Steve blows himself up at home, as long as he’s not setting any part of Mission Control on fire. Danny’s pretty sure he would like it less if he knew that Steve’s project involved lifting “gently used” items from the NASA warehouses, fixing them up, and leaving them in the backseat of Kono’s convertible as weird courtship offerings. 

Most girls would rather have flowers, Danny thinks, but most girls aren’t Kono. He’s got to hand it to Steve - whatever he’s doing might actually be working. The last time they ran into her in town, Danny driving Steve and Grace for some ice cream, Kono actually graced Steve with a smile and a half-wave. Steve had nearly vibrated out of his seat the whole drive back.

Steve hightails it out of there before Chin can ask any more questions about his wayward spark plugs. _Wuss,_ Danny thinks, and smiles down at his drafting table.

“Something funny?” Chin asks, and Danny shakes his head. 

“He’s a little funny in the head, but what can you do?” Danny asks, hands opening in an elaborate shrug. Chin gives him a rare grin.

“You’re his best friend - what does that say about you?” he asks, and Danny sighs.

“Well, some days I think he’s actually my eight-year-old’s best friend, if that’s any indication.” 

“How is Grace?” Chin asks warmly, and Danny’s heart stutters; Chin’s the only guy other than Steve who doesn’t think it’s weird that it’s just him and Gracie, who doesn’t avoid talking about her, who doesn’t pity Danny a little, like he was saddled with her somehow and has got to regret it. But Chin knows what’s it’s like to raise a little girl on your own, and Chin always has something kind to say to Grace when he sees her. He tries to ignore how close Chin is standing, the casual hand propped on the edge of Danny’s desk. He looks down to avoid staring at the pull of his dress shirt against his shoulders and ends up blinking away from the pull of dark linen across Chin’s thighs. Danny closes his eyes again, scrubs a hand through his hair. Gracie, he remembers, he can talk about Grace to anyone, even Chin. 

“She’s good. Great, actually. She doesn’t seem to hate the weather as much as I do, but she’s also spent most of the month in her bathing suit.”

“Ah, to be young again,” Chin answers, and Danny’s brain conjures up a picture of a youthful Chin in swim trunks. Danny turns quickly back to his work.

“How’s Kono? Settling in?” he asks, eager to deflect. Chin absently flips through a manual on Danny’s desk.

“She’s not... unhappy to be here, I think, but we’re still working out how to live together as adults,” Chin admits.

“Last time you shared space like that she was, what?” 

“Eighteen,” Chin says. “Though she’s been home in the summer before. This just feels different, somehow.”

“Well, she’s not leaving anytime soon so you have time,” Danny says with a grin and a wave of his hand. “It’ll work out. She’s a smart kid.”

“Woman,” Chin says, pointedly.

“Woman,” Danny corrects. “And there, we have our problem.”

“You just wait until Grace is old enough to stay out all hours, and you can’t say a thing about it,” Chin warns, but he’s laughing a little. 

Danny puts his hand over his heart. “Bite your tongue,” he says. “And let me tell you, she will _never_ be too old for me to say something about it.”

Chin looks past Danny’s desk to the window into Control. Part of the Gemini II team is assembled near Chin’s station, frowning at something on the clipboard. “Looks like Taylor doesn’t like my changes,” Chin mutters. “I better let you get back to work, Danny.”

Danny wants say that Chin should tell Taylor to go fuck himself. Instead he puts his hand on Chin’s arm and gives it a squeeze. “It’ll be fine,” he says, with way more assurance than he feels. “With Kono.”

Chin’s smile makes Danny’s heart speed up, and it doesn’t slow down again until Steve comes to collect Danny and his things and drag him out for a drink.

*

Summer passes, and Danny is blissfully excited about the first truly chilly day of the fall, which admittedly waits until early November to appear. He throws his leather jacket on and tosses his sports coat in the driver’s side window of his car, and arrives at HQ with a spring in his step. He might actually even be whistling.

This is probably the tactical disadvantage that Steve was looking for, because instead of saying "no, no, that is insane, no," when Steve asks, Danny finds himself agreeing to invite the Kellys for Thanksgiving at Casa Williams.

“You don’t have to,” Danny adds quickly, leaning against the wall near Chin’s desk in the Control Room. His knees are suddenly like jelly. “I don’t know if you and Kono have some Thanksgiving traditions, so if it’d interfere -”

“Danny,” Chin interrupts with a warm smile, “Our only tradition is watching the parade and eating too much.”

“So, pretty standard then.” Danny crosses his arms, then uncrosses them and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Well, ours is nothing special, just a bird and some potatoes and I usually fuck up the stuffing, but Grace and I would love to have you.” He winces inwardly at the word choice, but Chin just props his elbows on his drafting table. 

“We’d love to come,” he says, quiet and calm as always, but Danny’s stomach swoops down to his knees. “Should I bring something? I’m not a great cook, but Kono is a master at finding whatever shop in town makes the best pie.”

“Pie it is!” Danny says inanely, and then makes an excuse to flee as quickly as possible.

“I hate you,” he hisses at Steve later that afternoon. “I’m going to murder you and they will never find the body.” They’re in the lunch line in the staff cafeteria and no one pays any attention; it’s possible that Danny says that to Steve a lot.

Steve bumps his shoulder and grins. “Did you tell him I’d be there?”

“I...” Danny pauses. “It didn’t come up, actually.” Steve’s grin gets wider. 

“Excellent.”

*

Danny doesn’t usually welcome disaster, but when the specifications for the heat shield fail three simulations in a row and he has to spend the week before Thanksgiving up to his elbows in punch cards and pencil shavings, he’s grateful for the distraction. Unfortunately, it also means he’s behind on his turkey day preparations.

“Ma, I don’t need to hear about Aunt Diane’s allergies, I need to know if I should cover this da- darn thing or not cover it,” he yells into the phone and Grace pauses in her duties as Head Potato Washer to roll her eyes at him. Danny decided when they moved to Houston that if Rachel got Grace for Christmas, he certainly wasn’t going to let his massive extended family kidnap her for Thanksgiving. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss his mom’s home-cooked meals. 

“No, wait, _wait_ , I’m going to write this down. Jesus, this is more complicated than a launch sequence, I want you to know that. _No_ , I don’t have it saved from last year. Ma, I love you, you know I do, please don’t put Sister Margaret on the... Hi, Sister, yes, I’m great.” Danny hears a snicker from the doorway and waves Steve inside, only flipping him the bird when he’s sure Grace’s back is turned.

“Hey, short stuff,” Steve says to Grace, kissing the top of her head and dropping into the chair beside her. Grace just grins at him and hands over the peeler, pushing the bowl in front of him. “Oh, so I’m on KP?” Steve laughs.

“You’re on _potatoes_ , Uncle Steve,” Grace says, rolling her eyes again. “I’m making stuffing ‘cause it’s better.” Steve just stares at Danny, peeler in hand, eyebrows raised.

“It’s called _delegation_ ,” Danny says, putting his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone where Sister Margaret is telling him about the bake sale the church had last month. “My kid is brilliant. Yes, Sister, thank you,” he says, turning back to the phone. 

*

It takes a little while, but between the three of them, Danny manages to put together a small but passable Thanksgiving feast of turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, three bean salad, stuffing and fresh cranberry sauce. 

Of course, Chin and Kono arrive just as Danny is pulling the turkey out of the oven, sweaty and disheveled, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He’s pretty sure there’s a cranberry stain on his apron. Which he is wearing. He’s glad he’s so warm already, his face pink from the heat of standing over the stove all day, or Chin would absolutely notice his blush. “Hey, ah,” he says, pulling off his oven mitts. Chin is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a pie in each hand. “You're early.”

“Sorry,” Chin says, but he’s smiling softly, so Danny doesn’t believe him. “Where should I put these?” Danny looks around enough to notice that every counter in his kitchen is a mess from Hurricane Williams-McGarrett. 

“I -,” he starts, at a loss, and Chin just chuckles and walks over, perching one pie on top of a sack of flour before pulling open the fridge and tucking them both inside. “Good, yes, that works.”

“Kono insisted we bring wine, too,” Chin says. “She’s opening it in the dining room. You look like you could use a glass?”

“Yes, god, thank you,” Danny says emphatically and Chin smiles again. 

“Coming right up, Dr. Williams.” 

The second Chin is gone, Danny rips off the apron and washes his hands in the sink, running his damp fingers through his hair in hopes of taming it. “You look good, Danny,” Chin says, appearing suddenly at Danny’s elbow. Danny freezes, heart hammering in his chest. “I mean,” Chin stammers, “you look... fine. Your hair. It looks good.”

Danny turns his head and Chin is standing stock-still beside him, his outstretched hand holding a glass of red wine. His face is uncharacteristically blank, though his eyes are wide with something approaching horror. “Thank you,” Danny manages, taking the glass carefully. 

They both sip their wine in silence. 

Dinner itself is something of a relief, if only because it takes the pressure off Danny to not look like an idiot. Steve is doing that well enough for the both of them.

“I hear some of the engine testing isn’t going so well,” he says over mashed potatoes. “You set some cars on fire recently, Kono?” Danny winces. Of course Steve would think starting an argument is akin to flirting.

Kono narrows her eyes. “Considering I learned plenty from those tests, I wouldn’t call them a waste,” she replies. “But remind me to give you a call next time - I can always use more test dummies.”

Steve beams at her, and Danny can tell Kono is fighting a smile. Danny rolls his eyes at Chin, but Chin’s watching Steve intently, a crease between his brows. He doesn’t seem to get the joke. “Hey, Chin,” Danny says, pulling his attention away from the children at the table - all three of them. When Chin looks at him, his face smoothing out to a kind smile, Danny finds that he doesn’t have any idea what he was going to say. “Um,” he falters and Chin’s smile falters a little in return. “Any idea if Mueller thinks we’ll be ready to run launches from here any time soon?”

They’ve been working on the Houston command center for months, and Danny is hopeful that at least some of the Gemini missions will run from Houston and not the Cape. “He sounded pretty optimistic at the last update,” Chin says, and with that he and Danny are back in safe waters - work, launches, coworkers who drive them both crazy. Danny settles back in his chair, lets Grace dump more potatoes on his plate and Steve top up his wine glass a few times.

That last part is probably what gets Danny in trouble, he reflects later. Once they get through dinner and some of Kono’s spectacular, if store-bought, pie, Kono and Steve challenge each other to a marathon game of gin rummy; Grace is recruited to make sure neither of them are cheating. “It’ll help her with her math skills!” Steve tells Danny. Danny’s so fed up with the schoolyard-level flirting that’s going on that he just lets it happen. Danny starts to clear the table and Chin gathers up his plate and follows Danny into the kitchen. 

“You looked like you could use some help,” he smiles when Danny takes the plate from him and lets it clatter into the sink. Danny looks around at the mess of his kitchen helplessly. He’s warm and loose, buzzing from the wine and the way Chin is standing close enough that Danny can feel the heat of his body. 

“Yeah,” Danny says, “thanks.” He knows his smile is probably stupid, but Chin just smiles back. They start with the plates and bowls in the sink, Danny laying out tea towels on his tiny kitchen table to make an extra drying rack. They get through the wine glasses and the serving bowls, Chin helping Danny wrap up plates of leftovers that he can put in the oven later. Danny’s on a roll - their conversation veers from funny stories of Chin learning to cook American food during his first few years in California to Danny’s tales of holidays with his big Catholic family. Chin laughs more than Danny’s ever heard. Chin’s flushed too, steam from the hot water combining with the wine they’re still drinking, glasses perched in out-of-the-way places on the counter. 

“Then,” Danny’s in the middle of a story, wrestling with the turkey roasting pan that he’s filled to the brim with water to soak overnight. “Uncle Lou decides that he’s going to make the neighbors think we’re _actually_ crazy, so he goes out and buys a tree that’s a good three feet too tall for our living room.” Chin shakes his head, sipping from his glass and watching Danny with smiling eyes. “He comes home and lops off the top of this monster and puts the bottom of it up with the top brushing the ceiling, and then he gets the ladder out of the garage and - shit, _shit_ ,” Danny swears, feeling the pan slip in his damp fingers. Chin lunges forward but it’s too late - the whole pan of water sloshes and tips, and in a moment he and Chin are covered in sudsy, greasy water. “...Shit,” Danny says, watching the water soak through Chin’s white dress shirt, the outline of his undershirt clearly visible. “I’m sorry!" Danny grabs the closest dry dishtowel and runs it over Chin’s chest, trying to sop up the worst of it. 

“Danny,” Chin says, sounding slightly strangled, and when Danny looks up, Chin is staring down at where Danny’s hands are splayed over his stomach.

“I’m -” Danny starts, but he can feel Chin’s rabbit-fast heartbeat under his fingers. “Sorry,” he says again, and when Chin looks up at him, Danny’s certain for a moment that Chin would be okay if Danny stepped forward and not back, if Danny slid his hands up Chin’s chest to his broad shoulders, leaned in to press his mouth - 

“Maybe - if you have a shirt I could borrow?” Chin says, his eyes fixing on a point somewhere over Danny’s shoulder. Danny pulls his hands away and steps back, one hand raking through his hair.

“Of course, it’s totally my fault, just wait here,” he says, fleeing to his bedroom and closing the door. “Fuck,” he hisses to himself, because if Chin didn’t suspect that Danny’s feelings for him were more than friendly before, he’s sure as shit going to wonder about it now. Danny’s mind races - he should be worried about whether Chin will tell anyone, whether Danny’s job, his career, his custody of _Grace_ is in danger, but somehow he doesn’t think that Chin’s the kind of man who would spill anyone else’s secrets. There was a second there where Danny was so _sure_ that Chin was with him, was right there - but what was Danny expecting? A petting session in the middle of his kitchen, Grace and Kono and Steve a room away, both of them soaked to the skin with dishwater? Danny looks down at himself - the water soaked through his shirt enough that he can see the dark outline of chest hair through the material. “Sexy,” he mutters sardonically and sets to finding a new shirt for himself, and one for Chin. 

Chin changes in the bathroom, Danny sighing under his breath. He emerges in Danny’s best blue polo shirt, the stretch across the chest making Danny’s heart beat just a fraction faster. Chin’s cheeks are still flushed and he won’t look directly at Danny, not even when he says his thanks and goes to gather up Kono and head home. Danny isn’t sure how he’s going to be able to be in a room with Chin at work anymore, not if Chin won’t even look at him. 

Danny plasters a bland smile on his face and waves goodbye from the driveway, Steve and Grace at his elbow. “Well, that’s over,” he says with a heavy sigh as the car disappears around the corner. 

“Not by a long shot,” Steve says gleefully and Danny shoots him a hard look.

“What does that mean?” he asks, and Steve nearly preens, crossing his arms in front of him and grinning down at Danny.

“Kono and I are going to Chester’s for dinner on Friday,” he says. “She’s totally into me, Danno.”

Danny waits until he’s inside to bang his head on the wall a few times.

*

The problem is, Steve appears to be right. Dinner with Kono turns into movie dates and trips to the beach and visits to the zoo and, Danny’s pretty sure, a few drag races outside of town. 

Kono is definitely into Steve, and Danny can only watch with a detached sort of fascination as Kono wraps his best friend more and more firmly around her little finger, Steve loving every minute of it.

Sadly, Danny can’t get Chin’s take on the situation without talking to him, and Danny and Chin have been surprisingly good at not talking to each other since Thanksgiving.

Avoiding Chin at work is nearly impossible, but the missions are coming fast and furious, one on top of the other, and Danny and Chin barely have time to say hello over the coffee machine. He feels himself flush when Chin hands him a mug, but he says thank you and answers Chin’s occasional questions about Grace.

Mostly, work is all Danny can think about anymore - Gemini II manages to not burn itself up on re-entry; then Gemini III happens in late-March. Gus and John circle the whole world three times in four short hours, and the whole country erupts into NASA madness. 

Mueller calls Danny into his office on the first of April. Danny tries not to take that as a sign. “You doing anything between now and the third of June?” he asks with a smile.

“I certainly hope so, sir,” Danny replies, his heart beating hard in his chest.

“You’ve been working hard, Williams,” Mueller says. “I know you’re on track. How are White and McGarrett looking?”

“Ready, willing and able,” he replies. “The launch specifics are set. We just need to push through the sequences until they can do them in their sleep.” Mueller nods.

“Good luck,” Mueller says, and shakes his hand. “You’ll do great. Looks like you’ll get to inaugurate the new Mission Control, too. Don’t screw it up,” Mueller adds with a wry smile. 

And just like that, it’s a go. Danny’s got just over two months to get the mission squared away - two men in space for four days, one spacewalk, and millions of people watching his every move from an untested command center. It’s terrifying. It’s impossible. It’s the best feeling in the world.

The euphoria of the scheduled launch lasts a grand total of three days, when Steve drops by with a bombshell.

*

“What the hell is that,” Danny asks flatly, even though it’s painfully obvious.

“A lug wrench, Danno, what the hell does it look like?” Steve replies with an eye roll. “It’s a ring.”

“That, my friend, is not _a ring_. That is an _engagement ring_. That ring screams ‘get me to the church on time,’ with the diamond and the little rubies on the side.”

“You think?” Steve asks, grinning widely. “I don’t know much about this stuff, but the girl at the shop seemed pretty impressed -”

“No, no, _no_ , we are not talking about the shop girl’s big cow eyes, Steven, we are talking about the fact that you bought an engagement ring, and there is really only one person on earth you would buy that for -”

“Danny -”

“- and I know that you are a crazy person, but you’ve known this girl for _six months_ -”

“Eight months; I have known Kono for eight months Danny and I think -”

“ _Oh_ , excuse _me_ , six months is not enough time to make this kind of life-altering decision, but _eight_ -”

“DANNO,” Steve cuts in loud enough to cut off Danny’s ranting. Danny looks at him, and Steve looks back at the ring, nested gently in its tiny red box. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone in my life, Danny. She challenges me, and she pushes me, and she’s beautiful and she laughs at my physics jokes, Danny, come on, I’d be a total idiot to ever let her go.” He looks up at Danny. “Besides, you of all people should know how hard it is to not fall in love with a Kelly.”

Danny sits down heavily on the couch and runs his hands over his face. This is Steve McGarrett, so every fiber of Danny’s being should be screaming that this has to be a genuinely terrible idea, but somehow when Danny pictures it - pictures Steve and Kono driving off in some souped up convertible, a “Just Married” sign stuck to the bumper - it seems more than okay. It feels inevitable. “Okay,” Danny sighs.

“Okay?” Steve asks with a wry smile, plopping down next to Danny. “Gee, Danno, it’s _so great_ to have your blessing on this.”

“You know what I mean, asshole. You’re right. She’s the only woman on earth crazy enough to put up with you until death do you part, so yeah.” He turns to smile at Steve. “That’s... I’m happy for you.”

“Are you, Danny?” Steve asks, and it’s so soft and genuine that Danny has to look away. “I know you and Chin -”

“There is no me-and-Chin, Steve, and that’s really not...” He sighs and leans back against the cushions. “You’re a bigger man than I, McGarrett, and I wish you all the best, which you will definitely need. She is going to kick your ass on a daily basis, you know this.”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve says with a satisfied smile, and Danny absolutely _does not want to know_. They sit there for a long, quiet moment. Danny thinks that Steve is right - Kellys are beautiful and dangerous, and the fact that Steve is gutsy enough to have a ring in hand after eight months while Danny has spent the last four avoiding Chin at all costs, well. It says something about them both, he thinks. About what a coward Danny is.

“Does Chin know?” Danny asks. “I mean, did you ask him?”

“Danny, I am not proposing to Chin,” Steve says.

Danny rolls his eyes. “I know, moron, but in a lot of ways he’s very... traditional. I mean, I don’t know the custom in Korea, but I would bet there is some sort of ‘asking for your daughter’s hand’ thing that’s expected.”

“She’s not his daugh -”

“If you finish that sentence we will have a problem,” Danny growls, because if there is one thing Chin Ho Kelly is, it’s a father.

“Fine, okay, but -”

“No buts! Suck it up, put on your best ‘I’m a grownup’ tie, and go ask for your girl’s hand, McGarrett.”

“She’ll be pissed,” Steve says. “She doesn’t like anyone making decisions for her.”

“Fine, ask her first, but make sure Chin’s involved somehow in this. Trust me, fathers don’t like losing their little girls any more than Kono likes being told what to do.”

“What if he says no after she says yes?” Steve asks, hands on his hips.

“It’s a _formality_ ,” Danny says. “I have no notion that I’ll be able to keep Gracie from marrying anybody, but it’s nice to have the chance to menace the guy who’s taking away your little girl. Just let him threaten you with physical violence, promise you’ll never hurt her, and it’ll all be fine.”

“Ugh, that sounds awful,” Steve says.

“You’ve been strapped to a three hundred pound pack, dropped into the deep end of a pool and told to do dextrous manual labor for hours on end - you think this is gonna be worse?” Steve shoots him a pained look, and Danny thinks about what Chin looks like when he’s really pissed off. “Yeah, okay, point.”

“Can I at least have Kono outside for backup?”

“Yeah, that’s... probably a good idea,” Danny replies. 

*

It’s three in the afternoon the next Saturday when everything goes all to hell. 

Grace, thank goodness, is playing at a friends house, so she doesn’t witness her Uncle Steve screeching to a halt outside Danny’s house and stalking in through the front door with a look of pure, unadulterated panic.

“Steve, what -”

“You said it was a goddamned formality, Danny.” Steve is pacing in his living room. He’s wearing a suit, on a Saturday, and that more than anything is what gets Danny to the right answer.

“Oh. Oh, jesus, what happened?”

“I did it just like you said, I put on the monkey suit and went over there, and Kono rolled her eyes at me like I knew she would,” Steve says, pointing an accusing finger at Danny, “but she went along with me because she thought it was _sweet_. So I sat him down, and I told him straight that I am in love with Kono and I want to marry her, and I’ll never hurt her, and all that stuff.”

“And?” Danny asks, his stomach already tensing.

“And he said no, Danno. Flat-out no.” 

“He didn’t give you a reason?”

“I figured he might have some issues - she’s too young, I’m too old, I’ll hold her back - I would _never_ hold her back, Danny. She wouldn’t let me anyway, but I want her to finish grad school as much as she does.”

“I know,” Danny says, placating. As much as Danny doesn’t understand the whole thing between Kono and Steve, he knows that Steve is enamored of Kono _because_ she’s his equal, because she can outpace him in algorithms as much as she can on the racetrack. 

“But he didn’t say _any_ of that, Danny. He said ‘you’re a pilot,’ like that is a reason not to marry someone. But when I pushed it, he told me the conversation was over and asked me to leave.”

“That’s... weird,” Danny concedes.

“You have to talk to him,” Steve says, eyes wide and pleading.

“What? _Why?_ ” Danny asks, reeling back a foot from where Steve is standing, like Steve is going to bodily throw him in the car and dump him in the middle of this mess.

“It was your idea, Danny,” Steve starts and Danny shakes his head - it was a good idea, and clearly something else is going on here, and Danny will be damned if he gets the blame for ruining Steve’s happiness. “He’ll listen to you. He respects you.”

“As an engineer!” Danny argues, gesturing in front of him with both hands.

“As a _father_ ,” Steve counters. “He respects how you raise Grace, and he’ll talk to you about this, I know he will.”

“I really think this is something you and Kono have to -”

“She’s so mad right now, I don’t think she wants to talk to him. She’s already talking about eloping before the launch -” Danny’s head jerks up at that, because that is _soon_ , that is way too soon, and would shatter whatever is already broken here, “and I know that’s a terrible idea, Danny, don’t give me that look. He doesn’t want to talk to me, and Kono says she doesn’t want to talk to him, but come on, Danny. He’s her entire family. He’s all she’s had since she was ten years old. I’m going to marry her, but I’m not going to do it at the expense of her entire family. You’ve got to help me here, please.”

“Fuck,” Danny says, leaning his head back against the wall with a dull thud. “Okay, just. Fine. But you have to pick up Gracie from Joanna’s and make sure she has dinner.”

“Yes, Danny, of course,” Steve says, smiling wide and leaning in to give Danny a bear hug. 

“With a vegetable,” Danny admonishes, his words muffled against Steve’s suit jacket.

*

Danny knocks on the door of the Kellys’ modest ranch house, but he’s not surprised when there’s no answer. He tries the door and, sure enough, it opens - Danny will never be used to the casual openness of his Texan neighbors and reminds himself to talk to Grace again about locking up when she comes inside.

Chin isn’t in the living room, and doesn’t reply when Danny calls out a cautious ‘hello.’ Danny takes a deep breath and looks around. The large living room takes up much of one half of the house, the kitchen to one side and in the rear a small step leading down to the den. Danny’s never been inside Chin’s house; he only knows where Chin lives because he once volunteered to drive him home when his car refused to start at the end of a long day. Now, he tries not to look around in interest. It’s a modest home, the furniture nice but not overly expensive. The room is blue, bleeding to a soft green in the kitchen. There is art on the walls, flowers in bursts of color and a painting of a waterfall that looks like it could have come with the house. 

There are hints of Kono all over the place - a pile of engine manuals on the side table by the sofa, a pair of women’s shoes kicked off in one corner, bobby pins on the coffee table. But other than a bookshelf of engineering and physics texts that Danny knows from his own grad school days, there is no hint of Chin, of where he came from, of who he is. The house isn’t cold, but it’s strangely impersonal.

Wandering through the living room, he glances through the patio doors to the small backyard, the grass just turning spring green. He spots Chin sitting on the concrete, his broad shoulders pressed against the glass of the sliding doors. Danny watches for a long moment until Chin lifts his arm to take a long pull from a bottle. 

Danny’s gut twists in recognition. He’s not a stranger to drinking until you don’t have to think; the months leading up to his divorce were not his best.

He feels like he’s violating whatever truce he and Chin have had since Thanksgiving, breaking through the wall that they both carefully placed between them. But he has a wild-eyed astronaut staked out in his living room and Chin has a murderous cousin who refuses to come home, and Danny wants them to be happy, no matter how crazy he found the idea of them eight months ago. He’s equally sure there’s something else going on with Chin, something bigger that Steve and Kono aren’t in a position to see. 

He makes his way slowly across the room and down the small step, sliding the doors open. Danny clears his throat. Chin doesn’t move other than to close his eyes and sigh. “Hey,” Danny says quietly, like Chin is a wild animal that can be spooked.

“Danny,” Chin exhales, his voice gravelly. “Go home.”

“Steve’s being a crazy person at my place right now,” Danny replies, dropping slowly to sit next to Chin, “so I think I’ll hide out here for a while, if that’s okay with you.”

“I don’t -,” Chin starts and Danny waves him quiet. 

“Just pass that over here,” he says, motioning to the half empty bottle of Jim Beam resting near Chin’s thigh. “Looks like I have some serious catching up to do.”

Chin turns his head to look at Danny, his eyes half-mast and searching. Danny is glad Chin can’t see the way his pulse jumps at that look. He reaches over and snags the bottle. Chin’s eyes don’t leave his face as Danny takes two long pulls in a row, the whiskey burning down his throat.

Chin turns his gaze back to the yard. They sit side-by-side for a while, watching birds peck at the packed earth, fighting over scraps from the lone tree in the corner. They pass the bottle back and forth in silence until Danny feels heavy from it, Chin’s body pressed warm against his side. 

“She thinks I have no heart,” Chin says quietly enough that Danny doesn’t startle. 

“She’s hurt,” Danny says, just as quiet. “She’s confused. Steve too.” They both keep their eyes on the yard, but Danny can sense where Chin’s hand has come to rest on the concrete of the patio, inches from his own. “He loves her, you know.”

Chin takes a deep, ragged breath. “I know,” he replies. “And she’s right. My heart hasn’t been whole in a long time. But it only means I know what she’s feeling now, and I know where it can lead.”

Danny rolls his head to the side at that, takes in the sharp angles of Chin’s face, the taper of his neck, the curl of his hair behind his ear. _His heart isn’t whole,_ Danny replays, and he blinks at the fierce stab of protectiveness that thrums through him. Someone broke Chin’s heart, and Danny wants to shake them, to scream at them for being so _stupid_ , so _careless_. Instead, he presses his shoulder more firmly against Chin’s and turns his eyes back to the yard, the birds, the tree. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says. “Not if you don’t want to.”

Chin is quiet for long enough that Danny thinks he won’t, that he’ll keep holding it inside, this heartbreak that is still so raw and fresh, even though it must have happened years ago, before Danny even met him. Chin takes another long pull from the bottle before putting it down gingerly. Danny can see his hand shaking. “His name was Michael,” Chin says, and Danny feels the whole world shift.

*

It’s not a long story, or at least not the version Chin shares with Danny. Chin talks about being a student in the engineering school in Inchon, about the start of conflict and how eager he was to sign on to help the American forces when they arrived with their firepower and their fighter planes. “I wasn’t a fighter,” he says. “I was an engineer. I made things, fixed things. I was good with planes and engines, and the Army hired me at 24, made me the chief mechanic for one of the smaller bases near the North.”

“That’s where you met him?” Danny asks gently. Chin nods.

“He was a pilot - he flew Panthers, loved anything that could fly low and fast. He used to tinker with the engines so they would go faster but he was terrible at it. Knew just enough to mess up his engines, and I always had to fix them.” Chin’s smiling at the memory, and Danny has to swallow his tongue to keep from asking more questions. He gets a feeling that Chin hasn’t ever told this story, not in the dozen years that he’s been stateside. “He was doing it on purpose,” Chin adds, “though I didn’t find that out until later.”

“He wanted to see you,” Danny says surely, because that’s what he would have done. Hell, it’s what he _has_ done, going to Chin with specs he knows he could fix himself, just to have a few moments with Chin, talking over his equations, watching his strong hands on his slide rule.

Chin hums in agreement, his mouth still caught in a glimmer of a smile. “I had never felt for anyone the way I felt for him,” he says. “And when he told me he felt the same... well, _told_ is the wrong word. He kissed me one day, and the whole world just felt alive for the first time. We talked about everything, about things we’d never told another living soul. We talked about it as though there was a future for the both of us.” Chin is quiet for a long time and Danny longs to reach over, to give him some comfort. 

“What happened to him?” Danny asks, as gently as he can. Because he knows this is the answer. This is the fear he holds for Kono, for Steve, for _their_ future.

“He was shot down over Yonan. Too close to the ground for a parachute. He always flew too low, always took risks. I knew that, of course. I thought he was brave and fearless. I loved that about him. But it was arrogance, and it killed him.” Chin closes his eyes. “He was three months from the end of his tour. He’d already helped me apply to American universities with the backing of the Army. We were going to start a life, be together over here.”

“Chin -” Danny says, a lump in his throat. He doesn’t know what to say in the face of this, doesn’t know how to deal with this anguish that Chin’s been carrying for over a decade.

Chin takes deep, even breaths beside him. “I wouldn’t have made it through the rest of the war without Kono. Two weeks after Michael went down, the authorities came to me, said my uncle’s village had been decimated in a bombing. They found Kono on the road leading toward the city, said the only thing she told them was that her cousin Chin Ho worked for the Army. I became her guardian.”

“There wasn’t anyone else to take her?” Danny asks. They never talked about family other than each other, so it made sense. 

Chin shakes his head. “My parents had died a few years before from an outbreak of TB; my brother was killed by rebel forces before the war even began. I focused all of my energies on her, on getting her to talk again, on holding her through her nightmares. When the Army told me my student visa had been approved, I demanded that she go with me. Adoption papers were easy enough to forge in Korea, and the Army didn’t much care as long as I was working. We were a family of two, both so stuck in our grief that we clung to nothing but each other. Kono was my whole world.”

“She still is,” Danny tells him, and Chin exhales roughly.

“Yes. But somehow she moved on, learned to let other people in again.”

“And of course the person she lets in is an arrogant pilot who loves to take risks," Danny says with a sigh. 

Chin’s laugh is harsh and angry. “Why couldn’t it be anyone but him, Danny? Why does she want to marry a man who is about to strap himself to a rocket and - BOOM,” he says, miming a rocket taking off with one hand.

Danny bumps his shoulder again. “Honestly, we’re hoping for more of a WHOOSH. A boom would definitely reflect poorly on me.”

Chin turns to look at him. “Danny,” he says, long-suffering but smiling.

“Hey,” Danny says, locking eyes with him, Chin’s face only inches from his own. “Steve McGarrett is arrogant and fearless, but he’s my best friend in the world and I’m not going to let him go boom, okay?”

“You forget, Danny,” Chin says with a sad smile. “I’ve done the same calculations you have. Probability isn’t certainty.”

“That’s true in love as much as experimental science, my friend,” he replies, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying, and doesn’t mean you don’t learn something even when you fail.”

“You don’t know what that failure could cost her; I do.”

“You don’t think it will cost her that anyway, with or without a ring on her finger? You and Michael weren’t married, did that help you at all?”

Chin’s jaw clenches and Danny is worried he pushed too far. But Chin just leans back and takes another long pull of whiskey. “Danny -” says, his voice so sad and _tired_ that it breaks Danny’s heart.

“Hey, come on.” Danny leans forward and eases the bottle from Chin’s hand. “I think you’ve had enough, buddy.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Chin tells him, his voice barely a whisper. Danny stands up, his head swimming for a moment. He leans on the patio door and reaches his hand down to Chin. 

“You need to sleep this off. I know you don’t want Kono to repeat your mistakes, but you raised a stubborn woman, and you’re going to need to talk to her before she and Steve do something you’ll both regret.”

Chin winces at that, but he takes Danny’s hand and lets Danny help him up. He stumbles as they step inside and Danny wraps an arm around his waist, keeping him on his feet as they weave toward what Danny assumes is Chin’s bedroom.

Chin pulls away as they get to the doorway, leaning on his heavy oak dresser and easing himself down onto the bed. He still has his shoes on, and Danny sighs to himself as he walks over to the bed, squatting down to undo the slim laces and sliding one shoe off, then the other. When Danny glances up, Chin is watching him with an odd expression. Danny gently pats him on the leg and steps back, Chin’s shoes in his hand. “No shoes on the bed is a Williams House Rule,” he says, “Grace will back me up on this.” Chin gives him a small smile. “Where do you want them?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Chin says, his eyes drifting shut already. But Danny has seen how pristinely organized Chin’s house seems to be, so he walks around to the other side of the bed and places Chin’s shoes neatly next to the door of his closet. He’s standing back up when he sees it - an old photograph, yellowed and dog eared, peeking out from beneath Chin’s nightstand like it had fallen there from clumsy fingers. Danny picks it up. On one side is clearly a young Chin with his arm around the shoulders of a handsome pilot - dark hair and light eyes, enough laugh lines around them to prove that his grin in the photo wasn’t unusual. On the back, an unfamiliar hand had written “Chin Ho Kim and Michael Kelly, Inchon, 1953.”

He looks up sharply and Chin is watching him again, his eyes fixed on the picture. “Kelly, huh?” Danny says.

“They let me change my name when I immigrated,” Chin says, his voice low and raw. “It’s the only thing I had left of him.” His eyes close again and Danny places the photo gently on the nightstand. He perches on the edge of Chin’s bed, not quite sitting. He’s pretty sure this is the point where he should go, leave the guy to sleep it off, but everything is still in limbo. He’s an engineer - he likes _plans_. And Chin looks so vulnerable like this in his stocking feet, his hair tousled, his pants creased; Danny almost wants to stand guard in the doorway like he used to when Grace had bad dreams.

“I’ll tell them to give you some time,” he says gently. “Kono can stay with me tonight - Grace will love it. Tomorrow, you’re going to have to -”

“I know, Danny,” Chin says, his eyes still closed. “I’ll talk to her.”

“If you want me to -” Chin’s eyes drift open and Danny loses his train of thought.

“Danny,” Chin exhales. Neither of them move for a long moment before Chin turns his head to gaze at the blank wall. “I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Danny says. He reaches over to squeeze Chin’s shoulder. “Okay.” Chin’s hand comes up and curls around Danny’s wrist, loose enough that Danny could pull away. He doesn’t.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Danny replies, his own voice suddenly hoarse. He leaves Chin in his room, closing the door gently behind him, and makes it all the way out of the house and into his car before his hands start shaking.

*

The next day, Kono comes back to Danny’s with red-rimmed eyes, but she’s smiling. “He wants us to wait until after the launch,” she tells Steve, “but he’ll be there. He’ll give me away and everything.” Steve’s smile is blinding and Danny can’t help but grin when he picks her up and spins her around the living room. 

“Danno,” Steve says, breathless, as he puts her down. “Thank you. How can we ever -”

“Just focus on the mission, McGarrett.” Danny tells him. “You’ve got to get back here in one piece if this wedding is going to happen at all.”

“Yes, sir, Dr. Williams,” Steve says with a salute. 

Danny just flips him off. He turns to Kono. “How was he, when you left?”

“Quiet,” Kono says. “I mean, quieter than normal. He apologized, said you talked some sense into him, but he wouldn’t really tell me what set him off.” She looks at Danny, eyes dark and questioning.

Danny shrugs. “A man’s stories are his own to tell,” he says. If Chin isn’t ready to share his past with Michael, Danny certainly isn’t going to spill someone else’s secrets. 

Kono stares at him for a moment longer, until she’s distracted by Steve’s hand slipping into hers. She looks at Steve and her smile is happy and bright. “Well, whatever it was, thank you,” she says to Danny. 

“Now you just have to plan a wedding while working on your Master’s thesis, while this lug spends every evening running simulations with me,” Danny says with a sly grin, and Kono groans.

“We’ll need help,” Steve says with a nod. “Gracie!” he yells, and Grace saunters out of her room, her finger holding her place in a book. “How would you like to be our flower girl?”

“OH MY GOSH,” Grace yells, loud enough that Danny winces. She launches herself at Steve, who scoops her up and onto his hip like she’s still a baby. 

“You know, flower girls are very important helpers at weddings,” Steve tells her seriously, shooting a grin at Danny. “We’ll need you to help make sure Kono and I get everything ready that we need.”

“I can do that, Uncle Steve,” Grace says, just as serious. “I’ll make a whole list.”

“I bet you’re great at lists, just like your dad,” Kono tells her warmly. Danny runs a hand over his face.

“Did you just enlist my eight-year-old as your wedding planner?” he asks. Steve shrugs.

“Why not?”

“She knows just as much about throwing a wedding as either of us,” Kono nods, looking fondly at Steve and Grace.

“I hope you like the color purple, and also sea turtles,” he tells them. They laugh, and Danny’s only consolation is that he is not at all joking.

*

Monday is quiet, except for the enthusiastic congratulations that people keep tossing at Steve - in the parking lot, in the lunchroom, even the techs who run the sim need to shake Steve’s hand and call him a lucky SOB. Danny’s not sure how they all found out so fast, but gossip travels like wildfire through NASA so he shouldn’t be surprised.

Chin gets his fair share of hand-shaking too, with a lot of good-natured ribbing about how crazy he has to be to let Steve McGarrett into his family. Chin takes it all with good humor, but Danny can see the strain around his eyes by afternoon. “Hey, Kelly,” he says, leaning his hip on Chin’s desk. Chin’s eyes flick to his hip and then away, settling somewhere over Danny’s shoulder. Danny could swear Chin is blushing; it makes Danny’s cheeks heat a little in response. Chin is perfectly put together today - crisp navy suit, his grey tie perfectly knotted at his throat - but whenever he closes his eyes, Danny can still see the rumpled, flushed Chin he met this weekend. He wonders what Chin sees when he looks at Danny. 

He clears his throat and picks up a pencil from Chin’s desk, twirling it nervously in his fingers. “I had the computer cluster booked for today, but I think I need another few days to get my calculations in order. Saw you had the Friday slot, and I wondered if you wanted to trade?”

Chin looks at him, frowning a little in confusion. “Danny, I’m not sure -”

“It’s pretty quiet in there,” Danny says, “and you look like you wouldn’t mind the quiet.”

Chin blinks at him for a moment. “I - that’s,” he says, and he’s definitely flushed now. “Thank you, Danny, I would be happy to trade.” Danny smiles faintly, dropping the pencil back in the mug of them Chin keeps on his desk. 

“Great, good. I’ll let Taylor know to expect you.” He takes a few backward steps away from Chin’s desk. Chin doesn’t stop looking at him. Danny gives him a small wave before he finally turns around, his heart racing. He knows there’s a stupid smile on his face, but he can’t seem to pry it off.

*

Life settles down into something approaching normal, if you define ‘normal’ as ‘T-minus two months until Steve gets to spend a few days in space.’ Danny spends long hours at work, long enough that Grace sometimes ends up there with him on weekends. He draws equations on the chalkboard in his office; she sits at his desk and draws sea turtles in top hats. 

Steve gets tense as the launch date draws closer and it makes him quieter, more serious. All the things Danny always wished Steve was on a more regular basis. But seeing him go through sim after sim without a smile, his eyes hard, Danny decides he rather have the ridiculous Steve back. 

The launch can’t come soon enough. At the same time, Danny wishes he had another year or two to prepare, to make sure everything is perfect, and then make sure again. Sadly, they’re down to 4 short weeks.

“He looks… nervous is the wrong word,” Chin says to him, watching through the glass in the observation room as the sim runs for the tenth time in as many hours. 

“Determined?” Danny suggests.

“Yes, but also… focused.” Danny turns to look at Chin, but Chin’s eyes are still on Steve. “It’s good, I think. He’s not joking around.”

“This project was never a joke to Steve,” Danny tells him, because Steve is a ridiculous person, but he’s a goddamned astronaut, and he’s never fucked around about that.

“I see that,” Chin says, like maybe he’s just now figuring it out. 

“He’s a good guy.”

“Yes,” Chin nods, still not looking right at Danny. “So are you,” he adds, his voice warm like the whiskey they shared weeks ago. And this is the other thing that’s changed, the other source of tension in Danny’s life these days. Ever since he learned about Michael, Danny’s felt this pull from Chin, his gaze tracking Danny across a room, the heat of his body when Chin stands too close at morning briefings. It’s like the orbit Danny had safely established between them is slowly decaying, like they’re destined to crash into each other sooner rather than later.

When Chin’s eyes rake over his face, Danny feels the thrumming under his skin tick up to a steady buzz, but he just crosses his arms and shakes his head. “I just do my job.”

“You do much more than that, Danny,” Chin says softly and Danny breathes in and out, in and out. “You hold us all together.”

“I’m the Flight Director, it’s kind of in the job description,” he deflects and the corner of Chin’s mouth quirks up.

“Yes, but I think they got just the right person for the job.” Chin leans back on the railing, long legs crossing at the ankles. “I just hope we all get some down time after the launch. I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?”

Danny thinks about downtime: _Gracie, the wedding, warm spring melting into hot, hot summer, sweat on Danny’s back at the celebration barbeque, Chin’s fingers around the cool neck of a beer bottle, Chin’s fingers peeling off Danny’s dress shirt, Chin’s fingers…_ “Yeah,” Danny agrees, his voice a little hoarse. Chin smiles at him.

*

On Memorial Day weekend, Steve leaves for Cape Canaveral. Danny, Grace, and Kono hug him goodbye in the parking lot at headquarters. A few feet away, Patty White and the kids talk quietly to Ed, pressed in close, heads bowed in prayer. Steve and Ed climb in the van with matching manic smiles, turned up all the way for the benefit of their families and the reporters who have gathered for the event. Every moment from now forward will be documented, and Danny breathes evenly, trying to calm his nerves.

“See you soon,” Ed says as Patty tries valiantly not to cry.

“Can’t wait to have your dulcet tones in my ear, Danno,” Steve adds, and they all laugh, or try to. “Take care of my girls.”

And they’re gone.

They wave until they can’t see the van anymore. Grace presses her face into Danny’s side when they’re finally out of sight. Kono turns to them with a tight smile on her face. 

“Don’t worry, Grace, he’ll be back before school gets out.” 

“I know,” Grace replies, but her voice is tinny, wavering. Grace is a smart kid, and Danny’s told her the bare bones of what’s going to happen, that Steve will be in outer space and Danny will be able to talk to him. That Steve will bring her back a picture of the whole world. He and Steve have been pretty positive about it, but Grace knows it’s dangerous. She’s almost too big now, but Danny reaches down and picks her up, holds her close and rubs her back.

“Yeah, kiddo, he’ll be back before you know it,” he tells her, and Kono, and himself.

Danny looks across the parking lot and he can see Chin standing in the shadow of the building, his eyes on them, watching. Danny nods at him, and Chin nods back. 

Time to get to work. 

*

The morning of the launch, Danny gets up at 4am and puts on his best suit and the tie Grace got him for Father’s Day last year. He packs a small bag with incidentals - his razor, a toothbrush, a few extra shirts and ties, a pair of brown dress slacks. His housekeeper arrives early and makes him a big breakfast, but Danny’s too keyed up to eat much more than eggs and toast and a mug of coffee. Grace slips into the kitchen as he’s standing up and pulling on his jacket.

“Danno?” she says, quiet and serious.

“Yeah, Gracie?” he asks, squatting down so they can talk face to face. 

“You’ll do great,” she says, nodding her head once, like it’s all settled in her eight-year-old mind. Danny loves his kid a lot, but he didn’t know quite how much he needed to hear someone say that today. He pulls her into a tight hug.

“You’re the best,” he tells her as she hugs him right back. “I love you, kiddo.” They’re still hugging when the doorbell rings. It’s Kono, in a blue dress and a black leather jacket that is definitely Steve’s, a small leather suitcase in her hand. 

He’d thought about bringing Grace to see the launch at headquarters, but the launch is the trickiest part, the part where the most can go wrong - until, at least, they’re ready for re-entry. Instead, he talked Kono into staying with her during the four days Danny and Chin would be working out of Mission Control, watching on TV and checking in by phone so neither of them had to experience the tension at headquarters. Grace is taking the days off from school, more for Kono’s benefit than anyone else. Neither of them is going to get much done until Steve is home safe. Danny wishes he had the same luxury, but the “getting Steve home safe” part is pretty much his job.

“I’ll call you once he’s in orbit,” he tells Kono, giving her a quick hug of her own. “And I’ll check in after that, whenever I can.”

“Okay, boss,” her face smiling, but her eyes dark and serious. “Big day, you better get going.”

“Say hi to Uncle Steve for me!” Grace calls out as he waves over his shoulder. It’s still dark out, the whole of Houston just waking up in the pre-dawn hours, and Danny feels the nerves in his chest turning to electric shocks of excitement. 

This is it. This is the day that Steve and Ed are going into space to circle the globe for four long days, and Danny’s going to get them there, and Danny’s going to bring them _home_.

_This is the stuff of legend,_ Danny thinks, and when he walks into Mission Control at 7am, taking his spot at the Director’s station in a headquarters so new he can still smell the leather and chrome of their fancy desk chairs, he can feel the whole building vibrating right along with him.

*

“Hey Danno,” Steve says, checking in as they strap him into the command module. Danny can hear the grin in his voice. “We’ve got some great weather in Florida, wish you were here.”

“No, you don’t,” Danny shoots back. “You want me right where I am.”

“True enough,” Steve laughs, and Danny looks around to see his team working hard - a little loudly, but that’s to be expected. He catches sight of Chin at his workstation and gives him a little wave. Chin just grins and nods his head in acknowledgement. Danny’s smile gets wider.

“Okay, let’s do one last walkthrough, and get this show on the road.” Danny turns the mics over to Clifton and Gus and the boys at the Cape, and sits back to watch the countdown clock. 

The problem with being completely ready for something is that it ends up being a whole lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ when the time actually comes. “It’s not going to go faster just because you’re staring at it,” Chin says from Danny’s elbow when the clock still reads three hours to go. Danny winces a little, and Chin hands him a mug of steaming coffee. “No cream, one sugar,” he says, and Danny takes a welcome sip and squeezes Chin’s arm in thanks. 

Chin tilts his head over to his workstation. “Jones and I were going over the EVA procedure and wondered if you had a minute to consult?”

Jones and Chin had locked in the EVA procedure about three weeks ago, so Danny knows this is utter bullshit. Utter bullshit that he’s incredibly grateful for at the moment. “Absolutely, lead the way,” he says, the relief at having something to _do_ evident in his voice. Chin smiles at him and Danny barely resists hugging the guy.

*

Time marches on, though, and suddenly the clock is at T-minus 30, then T-minus 15. The Cape handles the launch proper, so Danny just stands at his station, headphones on, listening to the last-minute chatter and watching the TV monitor where they show the rocket on the ground at Canaveral, her engines already hot enough to clear the tarmac. 

T-minus five, and Danny looks around at each member of his team in turn, giving nods and thumbs up.

T-minus three, and Danny can feel a calm settle over him. He uncrosses his arms and watches the monitors and smiles when he hears Steve and Ed joke about ‘is it too late to change our minds?’.

T-minus ten seconds and the whole room is focused and _ready_.

T-plus three minutes, and Danny gets the all-clear from the Cape - Gemini IV has cleared the tower. “They’re all yours, Houston,” Clifton’s voice comes through the headset. 

“Roger, this is Houston, we’ve got ‘em,” Gus replies, and Danny slips off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. 

It’s his show now.

*

Five hours later, Ed’s slipped into his suit for the first spacewalk of the US space program. Steve grumbled about not being the one to go outside. “That’s what you get for being the commander, Commander,” Danny had told him, but inside he’s a little relieved. They have no reason to think the EVA won’t go off without a hitch, but Sanderson keeps harping on about space dust and sharp microscopic particles and unknown variables and Danny’s not sure he could take the stress of Steve in that suit.

They’re just about ready to go when Danny hears a muttered “Well, shoot,” over the VOX. 

“What is it, guys?” Gus asks, frowning at Ed’s tone.

“It’s the hatch - it’s sticking like we knew it might,” he answers and Danny squeezes the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“I thought we fixed that,” he snaps at Sanderson, and the guy blanches. “Whatever, let’s make it right,” Danny continues. He’ll have time to chew out Sanderson in four fucking days.

“I can get it open, Danno,” Steve says, self-assured, and sure enough, two minutes later, the bay door is sliding open into the vacuum of space and Ed White is floating out into nothingness.

“Ho-boy,” Ed says, gleeful, and Danny almost relaxes before Gus grabs him by the elbow. 

“They’re not responding to hails,” he whispers tightly, and Danny shoots him a sharp look. Steve and Ed should be checking in any and _every_ time Gus tries to talk to them, but somehow they’re not hearing CAPCOM. 

“Keep trying them,” Danny replies, and Gus nods. 

“Gemini IV, please respond,” Gus says, then “Gemini IV, we can hear you, can you hear us?” In his headset, Ed is gushing about how easy the suit is to maneuver, and Steve is telling him to wave for his camera, pointed out one of the module windows. Danny’s neck breaks out into a cold sweat, and Gus hails them again, and again and again.

“Another three minutes and they’ll be in the dark,” Grant calls out from across the room. All of Mission Control is tense - they’ve all picked up on the fact that Steve and Ed aren’t talking to them.

“Gonna check in with Control,” Steve finally says, and there’s a change over the line, a static hiss that Danny hopes means -

“Gemini IV, _please copy_ ,” Gus says for the umpteenth time, and Steve replies with “Copy, Control.”

The whole room exhales as one, and Danny barely resists putting his head on his desk in relief.

“Whatever the hell you did before, don’t do it again,” Danny yells, loud enough that when Gus says “The Director says -”, Steve replies with “yeah, yeah, got it. VOX seems to be a little on the fritz.”

He’s laughing, the son of a bitch.

“Tell Ed to get inside, _now_ ,” Danny tells Gus, and after a few long moments of Ed procrastinating, moaning about how it’s the worst moment of his life having to end his spacewalk, they’re finally able to close the hatch door.

Or, they try to.

“Um, Control? The hatch is still being stubborn, and it’s a little darker than last time I tried to fix this.” The capsule has slid into darkness on the far side of the planet. Danny takes a deep breath through his nose, then out again. If they can’t close the hatch, they can’t get a vacuum seal on the capsule, and they’ll burn up on re-entry. It’s not a small problem.

“What do you need, Steve?” he asks, because Steve doesn’t sound _worried_ , but he certainly doesn’t sound cocky.

“Give me Kelly, he knows how we did this last time,” Steve says, and Danny looks over to see Chin go stock-still in his chair. 

“Okay, Steve,” Danny tells him, his eyes fixed on Chin. ‘You okay?’ he mouths and Chin manages to nod his head jerkily. “You’re go for Kelly.” He flicks the VOX over to Chin’s station just as Chin snaps his headset on.

“Steve,” Chin says, cool and calm and not at all indicative of the nervous energy he’s throwing off, his knee jumping under the table.

“Yeah, it’s the spring mechanism again. I’m going to talk myself through it - you tell me if I’m fu -uh, screwing it up.” 

“Okay, I’m here,” Chin says, and he closes his eyes, visualizing the process as Steve talks, only stopping him once to make sure there’s a pin to hold the spring once it’s in place. “You’re doing great, Steve,” he says in the middle, and Steve just exhales softly into the VOX.

The hatch finally clicks into place, and the red light on Danny’s desk turns green ten seconds later. “We’re solid,” Sanderson calls out, and the whole of Mission Control erupts into applause.

“Okay, boys, enjoy some dinner,” Gus tells Ed and Steve, grinning from ear to ear, and Danny watches Chin pull his headset off and stalk from the room. 

“Back in ten,” Danny tells Gus, and follows Chin out into the hallway. By the time he gets there, the hallway is empty - Danny makes a guess and slips into the executive bathroom at the end of the hall. He locks the door behind him when he sees Chin leaning over the sink, shaking.

“If it hadn’t worked, Danny -,” he grits out. “I can’t have it be my fault if -”

“God, no, hey,” Danny says as he realizes what he did back there, putting Steve’s life in Chin’s hands, making Chin take on the responsibility for keeping Steve safe for Kono, for _Danny_. Danny inches closer until he can slide his arm around Chin’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, that was unfair, I knew you could do it, but I’m sorry. You’re amazing, though. You did it, babe, you -,” and when Chin turns under his arm into Danny’s body, Danny can’t help it. He leans in and kisses Chin’s gorgeous mouth, his brilliant, beautiful mouth, his arm curling around Chin’s neck to pull him close. 

Danny hasn’t thought this through enough to expect _anything_ , but he’s certainly surprised when Chin opens for the kiss right away, moans against Danny’s lips, pushes and pulls until Danny is almost sitting on the sink, Chin pressed in between his knees. Chin’s got one hand cradling Danny’s head, the other wrapped around his waist pulling him impossibly closer, and Danny’s lost in it, drowning in it, in the feel of Chin’s body under his hands as he shoves them roughly underneath Chin’s suit jacket, up and over his flat stomach, his ribs, his chest. 

“Danny,” Chin gasps, and Danny’s seconds away from just ripping Chin’s shirt open so he can touch _skin_ , when there’s a knock at the door.

Chin freezes, his lips pressed to Danny’s throat, and Danny manages to grit out “Occupied!” 

“Mueller wants an update, sir,” comes a voice from the other side of the door, and Chin eases back, the spell broken. Danny grabs his arm.

“Gimme a minute,” Danny says, and there’s a low rasp in his voice he hasn’t heard in years. Chin’s eyes are inky black, but he steps back two steps, three, until Danny can stand up and smooth down the wrinkles in his shirt. Until he can walk to the door and unlock it. 

“Danny,” Chin whispers, and Danny turns around to look at him. The pull to lock the door again and pick right back up is so strong that Danny tightens his hand on the doorknob to keep himself steady. Chin looks flushed and broken open, his suit rumpled, his tie askew. “What -,” he starts, and Danny shakes his head.

“When they’re back,” Danny tells him, tells _both_ of them, “I’m going to come find you. This isn’t over,” he promises and he can hear Chin’s shaky exhale as Danny heads back to his desk to call his boss and try not to lose the shred of focus he has left.

*

The next three days pass in a blur activity. Danny subsists mainly on caffeine and sandwiches pressed into his hands by worried secretaries. There are no more glitches in the mission, which is a blessing because Danny isn’t sure he could focus on one, not with Chin always in the room, always too close but not close enough. They haven’t spoken since that afternoon in the bathroom, nothing beyond work-related check-ins, but Danny can feel the thing between them growing and stretching, pulling taut like a rubber band every time they make eye contact or pass in the hall just a little too close. 

_Thank god Steve’s not here to see this, he would laugh himself sick_ , Danny thinks to himself on the last morning as he nearly runs into Chin coming out of the commissary. Both of them pause just a fraction too long, Chin’s eyes darting to Danny’s mouth, Danny’s hand hovering over Chin’s arm like he has no idea what to do with it. “Sorry,” Danny manages, and Chin’s eyes fly back to his.

“It’s fine, Danny,” Chin replies, his whole body too tense to make it believable. 

“You ready for this?” Danny asks, because it’s been _days_ and he’s missed talking to Chin, missed seeing him up close, missed _him_.

“What?” Chin asks, his eyes going wide.

Danny can’t help the small, hysterical laugh that bubbles out of his chest. “Um, re-entry. Almost time to bring them home.” 

Chin looks somber for a moment. “Steve’s sounding pretty tired up there.” 

Danny scrubs his hand over the back of his neck.

Actually, Steve sounds _exhausted_ on the VOX, his voice rough and his responses occasionally delayed, but Danny’s not going to say that to Chin, not after the hatch incident. The only other person who’d noticed was Kono, listening in on the NASA frequency on the radio he left at home for her and Grace. (“Can’t he get a few more hours of sleep before tomorrow?” she’d asked, and Danny tried to tell her he had plenty of time to sleep, but apparently sleeping in space was not as easy as one would think. Something else to add to their after-mission report.) 

“He’s been awake for four days straight before. At least this time he’s managing a few hours a night,” Danny tells Chin. “This is nothing.” He hopes he’s right about that.

Re-entry takes all of Danny’s energy for the next twelve hours, between the rapid-fire trade of information between Houston and the Cape, the pitch-and-roll of the capsule as it pushes into the atmosphere faster than it should, Steve correcting again and again until they’re finally at 30,000 feet and the first parachute opens, then the second. They’re off course by 40 miles or so, but Danny doesn’t care because _the parachutes opened_. Once they splash down, the US Navy is all over them like moths to a flame, and Danny sits back in his chair and closes his eyes and exhales as the entire room erupts in cheers and handshakes and a handful of tears.

“Good job, Director,” Danny hears a single quiet voice from his left, and when he opens his eyes, Chin is standing there with a soft smile on his face. 

“You too,” he says, grinning back without even meaning to.

“I’ll go call Kono and Grace,” Chin tells him, and Danny wants to object but he’s already being pulled from his seat by NASA press officials who are ready for a goddamn report before Steve and Ed are even out of the water. 

“I’ll find you after,” he calls to Chin, and he’s pretty sure he sees Chin blush, just a little. Danny cannot wait for this briefing to end.

*

Unfortunately, one briefing leads to two, which leads to a meeting with Mueller, then a press conference, then a photo op, then another briefing. Danny is about ready to throttle someone when he finally gets the all-clear that he can head home sometime after midnight. He calls ahead to let Kono know he’s on his way. 

“Grace is already asleep,” she tells him, “and I’m not far behind.”

“Long day,” he agrees, shoving all his clothes in his overnight bag. “Did you talk to Steve?”

“Yes!” she says, brightening. “He called me just after he talked to the President, and before he called his sister,” she laughs. 

Danny whistles. “Not too bad, as hierarchies go.” He’d talked to Steve himself for a few minutes shortly after they’d made it back to shore. Steve seemed in ridiculously high spirits ( _”Danno, it was amazing, wait until you see the pictures, you have to tell Gracie I got one just for her of the Galapagos Islands!”_ ), and his joy was infectious. Danny was certain he’d crash once the mission was over, but now he’s running on the high of a job well done.

“If you want to go out and celebrate, you should,” Kono tells him like she’s some sort of mind reader. “We’ll do your triumphant homecoming tomorrow. Chin says you can sleep at our place tonight - he wasn’t anywhere near sleeping when I talked to him a few hours ago.”

Danny freezes, his whole body running hot and cold. _Chin says you can sleep at our place_ , he hears, over and over, and his heart just about beats out of his chest. “Danny?” Kono says his name like she’s said it a few times. 

“Hey, sorry, that’s - I think I might do that,” Danny tells her, and he can hear her tired smile when she says goodnight.

Danny’s lucky it’s late, and that half of Houston is out celebrating the success of Gemini IV - the roads are mostly clear of traffic in Chin’s quiet neighborhood, and Danny probably breaks ten traffic laws trying to get himself there. Once he’s parked in the driveway, though, he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing. “He probably didn’t mean it that way,” he mutters to himself as he sits behind the steering wheel. “Don’t assume anything -” he starts, but then the porch light goes on and the door swings open and Chin is standing there in his slacks and a polo shirt, and his smile is nervous but real.

“You coming inside?” Chin asks, the corner of his mouth quirked up, and Danny exhales.

“Yeah, I’m coming inside.”

*

If Danny was expecting Chin to shove him against the door the moment he was inside (he wasn’t expecting it, but he wasn’t _not_ expecting it), he’s disappointed. 

“Let me take those,” Chin says, taking Danny’s briefcase and the suit jacket folded over his arm. He places them neatly on a dining chair and Danny follows him into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I could make a sandwich?” 

“I honestly have no idea,” Danny says. This has been the longest, best day of his life since the day Grace was born, and he’s standing in Chin’s kitchen at midnight after days of trying to pretend they did _not_ share one of the best kisses of Danny’s life, and Chin’s offering to make him a fucking _sandwich_. Danny laughs, leaning back against the kitchen counter, and he finds he can’t stop. Chin’s cheeks flush, but he’s grinning as he opens the fridge and pulls out two beers.

“Maybe this instead?”

“Maybe, sure,” Danny manages and Chin pops the tops and puts one in Danny’s hands, the glass cold and comforting. He’s still giggling when he takes a sip, and Chin shakes his head in amusement as Danny struggles to swallow. 

“What’s so funny, Danny?” he asks.

“Nothing, everything,” Danny shrugs. “ _You_ \- a sandwich, seriously?” Danny watches the flush creep down Chin’s neck, the way his long fingers curl around the neck of his bottle, and what the hell - Danny Williams put a pair of men in space and safely returned them to the Earth this week. This is definitely Danny’s week, and he’s going to take advantage of that. “C’mere.” His laughter is settling into a warm feeling across his chest and a wide grin, and when he reaches out to pull Chin closer, Chin comes easily.

“Danny,” Chin says absently, his eyes drifting to Danny’s mouth as he licks his lips. 

“Kono says I’m invited to sleep over.” Danny puts his bottle on the counter and slides his hands over Chin’s elbows, up his arms. 

“Is that what she said?” Chin’s smiling still, but Danny can feel the tension in his body as his hands ghost over Chin’s shoulders. His fingers slide into the hair at the nape of Chin’s neck, and Chin sways forward a fraction. 

“Please tell me I’m not here for sandwiches -”

“Danny,” Chin huffs, stepping into the V of Danny’s legs.

“- because I’ve been dreaming about this for two goddamn years, and let me tell you, my friend, there were never _sandwiches_ -”

Chin kisses him softly, their mouths barely touching until Danny pulls him closer, traps himself between Chin’s body and the counter. It’s nothing like the frantic kiss in the bathroom at Control, when Danny wasn’t thinking anything but the heat of Chin’s mouth, deafened by the blood rushing past his ears. Danny can hear everything this time - the slide of Chin’s hand over the cotton of Danny’s shirt, the rasp of Chin’s thumb over Danny’s stubble, the gorgeous gasp when Danny’s tongue eases Chin’s lips apart. It’s not frantic, but it builds in waves and crescendos until Chin yanks Danny’s shirt out of his trousers and slides his hands underneath, both of them breaking apart at the contact of skin-on-skin. 

“Bedroom,” Danny manages, and Chin’s eyes flash, one hand still splayed over Danny’s stomach.

“I thought I could just fuck you on the kitchen floor,” Chin says with a smile Danny’s never seen before, and okay, yeah, Danny could go for that, but.

“Babe, if we were going for fast and dirty, we could have done this back at Control. I’m hoping for more nakedness, less chance of kitchen appliance-based injury, here.”

Chin shakes his head, bemused, and pulls away enough for Danny to slip around the counter and head toward Chin’s bedroom. He pulls off his tie as he goes, unbuttoning his shirt and his cuffs with a bravado he’s only sort-of feeling. He pauses in the doorway long enough for Chin to catch up. “Change your mind already?” Chin’s voice is light but when Danny looks at him, his posture is stiff again, his eyes worried.

“Nah,” he says, settling back into his own skin. This is happening, this is _really happening_ , and Danny’s pretty sure he’s going to start laughing again at the absurd joy of it all. He slips his hand in Chin’s and tugs him inside the room. “Just making an action plan.”

Chin smiles at that. “Very sensible, Daniel.”

“Oh, it’s _Daniel_ now.” Danny pulls his shirt off and drops it over the back of Chin’s desk chair, folding his tie over the top. He toes out of his shoes. Chin just watches him. “I was hoping the ‘more nakedness’ part would also include you, but I can work around it,” he says, only half-joking. He’s been waiting a long time; he can wait longer if Chin needs to take this slow.

Chin doesn’t answer him directly, just steps forward into Danny’s space and splays his hands over Danny’s shoulders, down his bare arms, around to the smooth skin along his sides. Danny reaches out and tugs Chin’s shirt up just a fraction, just enough that he can slip his fingers underneath the hem. Chin shivers. “Been a while?” Danny says, even though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

“One could say that.”

Danny steps closer. “I’m happy to drive,” he says, his fingers ghosting over Chin’s sides, “but it’s been long enough for me that this is basically the blind leading the blind here.”

Chin laughs. “What’s the saying, about riding bicycles?”

“Yeah, that one works too,” Danny grins and leans up to kiss him again. 

Chin is an amazing kisser; Danny figured that one out about four days ago, but Danny still marvels at it, at the way Chin’s hands always seem to know where Danny wants them, the way Chin lets Danny up for air just as Danny thinks he might pass out. So Danny wasn’t even paying attention as Chin kissed him for a few long minutes, savoring the feeling of Chin’s bare skin under his hands where his fingers were still splayed wide under Chin’s shirt. “What - ,” Danny gasps as the backs of his knees hit Chin’s bed. Chin just smiles at him, a cross between sweet and wicked that makes Danny’s knees weak. Chin’s hand presses into the center of Danny’s chest, pushing lightly until he’s sprawled back on his elbows. Chin stands between his knees, and Danny loves this view, loves the way Chin’s eyes snap to his hips as Danny scoots up a fraction. “You gonna get down here, or what?” he goads, grinning, and Chin raises an eyebrow.

“Patience is a virtue, Danny,” he says, and Danny would have a snappy comeback, but Chin’s pulling his shirt up and over his head, and Danny’s dizzy from the sight of him. 

“God, c’mere.” He reaches out a hand and Chin comes willingly, crawling onto the bed and folding himself over Danny until they can kiss again, until Danny can touch all that golden _skin_. His hands slide everywhere. Chin keeps his weight off Danny when all Danny wants is to feel it, is to be pressed into the mattress by Chin’s hands and legs and gorgeous fucking chest. Chin presses hot, open-mouth kisses to Danny’s throat and Danny groans, partially in frustration. His hips jerk up and he hooks a hand around Chin’s thigh and pulls him closer as Danny’s body rolls up and into him. 

Chin’s answer is a low groan, his leg slipping between Danny’s. “Danny, ah,” he pants, and Danny can finally, _finally_ feel him, hot and hard against Danny’s groin, their dicks both straining against their flies. 

“I’ve got you,” Danny murmurs as Chin shudders against him, but he’s not sure he’s actually any more in control than Chin is right now. He’s skating along the edge of sanity, the pop and fizz of adrenaline shifting under his skin. He wasn’t lying - it’s been a long time since he’s been this naked with anyone, and longer since his heart’s been invested in the outcome. “Do you want -,” he starts, his fingers tucking into the back of Chin’s slacks.

Chin sucks hard on Danny’s throat, his tongue rasping against stubble, and Danny huffs out a laugh that’s just-this-side of hysterical when Chin’s strong, deft fingers tug at his belt. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Danny says, grinning mostly at the ceiling until Chin lifts his head. 

“Danny,” he says, voice serious but eyes dancing, “let’s assume it’s a yes moving forward until it’s a no, okay?”

Danny bites his lip, slides his hands up Chin’s arms again, all tense muscle and smooth, warm skin. “You’re sure it’s not too fast?”

Chin laughs. “I can’t guarantee it will be good, but I can guarantee that it will probably be fast either way.” He pulls Danny’s belt open one-handed and thumbs the button of his slacks. “This isn’t new to me, Daniel,” he says, his words soft and sharp all at once. “I’m just -”

“- rusty,” Danny finishes for him, and lifts his hips as an invitation. Chin smiles at him and tugs Danny’s slacks down over his hips, pulling them all the way off and dropping them to the floor. Danny snakes his hand between their bodies and palms Chin through his pants. “Not bad, old man,” he says with a wicked smile, and Chin laughs again. Danny’s heart leaps at the sound, and Chin must see something on Danny’s face because his smile becomes softer, sweeter. 

“I didn’t think I’d have this again,” he tells Danny like it’s a secret, and Danny feels like he might burst if he tries to answer in words. Instead, he just leans up on his elbows to kiss Chin, sweet and just a little dirty. Chin groans, deep in his throat, and there’s a sudden burst of movement as Chin pushes Danny back into the mattress, as Danny yanks open Chin’s slacks with a violent tug and shoves them halfway down his thighs until Chin grumbles against his mouth and kicks them off the side of the bed, nothing between them now but thin cotton boxers.

After that, they’re a writhing, moaning mess, and Danny almost screams a few times from the frustration of having not enough friction. He finally just tugs his underwear down enough that his dick presses against Chin’s flat stomach. Chin gasps and Danny pulls at Chin’s boxers too, biting at his shoulder as Chin’s hips shift up, over, until Danny’s got his fist wrapped around Chin’s dick. “Fuck,” Danny manages, and Chin’s eyes are squeezed tight, his breaths shallow and panting. Chin presses down, traps Danny’s hand between them for a second until he can shift and bring his knees up, bracketing Chin’s body as their dicks slide together and apart, skipping over sweat-soaked skin. 

The fizz in Danny’s spine has long since been replaced by a roiling heat, a desperate shaky feeling that keeps him clinging to Chin, his fingers leaving bruises on the back of Chin’s neck. 

“Danny, Danny, Danny,” Chin chants against his temple, “god, I can’t -”

“Next time, nice and slow,” Danny tells him, tells both of them, “this time, come for me, come on baby,” and Chin cries out, his whole body curling into Danny’s, one hand tight in Danny’s hair. “Yeah, fuck, holy fuck,” Danny manages, and with just a few more rolls of his hips he’s gone, bursts of light behind his eyes and with a moan that he can’t hold back anymore.

When he can finally blink his eyes open, Danny’s chilly everywhere that Chin’s not touching him. Thankfully, Chin’s touching him almost everywhere. Until he’s not.

Chin slowly rolls to sit up on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” Danny says, drowsy and uncoordinated as he reaches for him.

“I’ll be right back,” Chin says nodding to the bathroom just across the hall. Danny frowns and tugs at Chin’s wrist. He should be doing that, he thinks. He should be taking care of Chin, this was a huge deal, this was - “Daniel,” Chin smiles down at him, fond and exasperated. “You haven’t slept properly in four days. I’ll be _right back_.”

Danny lets go with a sigh, and the second Chin is out the door he feels his eyes slipping closed again. They don’t open until Chin’s wiping a warm washcloth over his torso, and Danny shimmies away. “Tickles,” he says and Chin shakes his head. 

“Better than the alternative,” he notes and Danny lays still while Chin cleans them both off and brings the washcloth back to the bathroom hamper. Danny drifts again, and suddenly Chin is tugging on his arm, pulling him up enough to pull the bed covers down and shove Danny back into the pillows. Chin climbs in next to him and Danny presses in close, smiling when Chin’s hand curls around his shoulder. 

“Was good,” Danny slurs. “We should -”

“Danny, shh,” Chin whispers. 

“No, but, we should talk about this, right?”

“Plenty of time in the morning,” Chin murmurs against Danny’s forehead and Danny can’t fight sleep anymore.

*

The talking part in the morning is stalled out for a while when Danny wakes up to the warm, wet heat of Chin Ho Kelly’s gorgeous mouth wrapped around his very pleased dick. 

“What the fuck,” he groans, but when Chin makes a noise like he’s unsure, Danny just slides his fingers into Chin’s hair and fucks up into his mouth once, twice, until Chin huffs, amused, and gets back to it. “Oh, god, fuck, that’s so fucking good,” he grits out, and Chin pulls off long enough to gently suck on Danny’s balls until he’s squirming. When Danny glares, Chin is grinning up at him. 

“Ticklish everywhere, Danny?” he asks, and Danny _is_ actually, but he just huffs out a laugh and says, 

“Guess you’ll just have to figure it out, smart guy.”

“Oh, I will,” Chin says with a devilish quirk of his eyebrows and Danny’s not sure how he’s ever going to survive being in a conference room with Chin and those eyebrows ever again. Chin leans back in, his perfect cheekbones hollowing as they suck Danny down, and Danny’s not ashamed to admit that he doesn’t last much longer. 

After, Chin crawls back up the bed, Danny’s legs folding around his hips as they kiss and kiss and kiss. Chin’s mostly hard, but when Danny reaches between them, Chin pulls his hand away, kisses his knuckles. “You wanted to talk,” he says, and Danny rolls his eyes.

“Seriously?” he asks, because he really, _really_ wants to touch Chin right now, to jerk him off in laboriously slow strokes, to hold him down and watch him come apart. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Chin asks, ignoring Danny’s incredulous look in favor of mapping the arc of Danny’s shoulder with the calloused pads of his fingers.

It had seemed like a good idea last night, when Danny was wrapped up in a post-coital glow to rival his goddamned honeymoon, but in the golden sunlight of the morning, peeking through Chin’s curtains, he’s not sure he should go poking the dragon.

Though, he thinks, this particular dragon may have already been poked.

He takes a breath and jumps in, heart first. “This isn’t some post-launch thing,” he says quietly, watching Chin’s fingers on his skin because he’s too scared to watch Chin’s face. “This is - it’s been here for a long time, for me.”

“Danny -”

“And if you want to take it slow, we can take it slow. Hell, we probably _should_ take it slow. But if you want to just do this every day for -” _for the rest of our lives_ , he bites off, “I mean, I don’t need slow, if you were wondering. I just need you.”

Danny feels hot and cold, splayed open like an animal for dissection. He’s felt this before, with Rachel - she was always so calm and almost clinical when they talked about their feelings, and Danny always felt like a freak, like a crazed teenager, when he said things like this, when he opened up his mouth and let his heart tumble out of it.

But Chin isn’t Rachel, and Chin’s eyes are shining when Danny finally risks a glance over at his face. “That’s good, Danny, because now that I have you here, I’m really not sure I can ever let you go,” he says and Danny can feel the smile spreading across his face, part joyous, part relieved.

“Well, good, glad we have that settled,” he says, and Chin leans closer and kisses Danny’s shoulder, the side of his neck. “Now can we get back to the part where I finally get my hand on your dick?”

“Such a romantic, Daniel,” Chin laughs, shaking his head, but he lets Danny roll him onto his back, his laugh shifting into a low groan as Danny’s hand finds its target. Chin is so gorgeous like this, Danny wishes he had a camera to capture it forever. But the selfish part of his brain is viciously glad that no one else gets to see Chin like this, out of his perfectly pressed suits, flushed and panting, his muscles shifting under his skin as he rolls his hips in counterpoint to Danny’s pulls.

“I’ve got you, hey,” Danny says, using his leg to press Chin’s thigh to the bed. “No rushing.”

“Danny, I want -”

“I’ve waited years for this, you think I’m not gonna give you _exactly_ what you want?” Danny’s hand doesn’t speed up, though, his fist tightening just a fraction. Chin whines high in his throat. “I can make this last for hours,” he says, and he means it. “That what you want?”  
He can see the war play out across Chin’s face, the part of him that wants to come fast like a rocket pushing against the part that hasn’t felt this in too long, that wants to drag it out like he’s not sure he’ll get it again. It’s that part that decides it. Danny pulls his hand away just long enough to spit into his palm. “Yeah,” he murmurs to Chin, “that’s what you want.” 

Danny doesn’t take hours - maybe twenty minutes, tops - but in the end Chin is a shivering mess, kissing Danny back sloppily and biting off curses, half of them in Korean. “Danny, please, please,” he finally begs, and Danny speeds up just enough to have Chin arching against him, sweat glistening off his chest, pooling in his collarbones. When he finally comes, it’s with a shout that would probably wake the neighbors if Danny was back in New York. Danny loves it, revels in it, thinks he’ll spend the rest of his life finding all the ways to make Chin Ho Kelly scream.

Danny’s definitely the one to do clean-up this time since Chin doesn’t look like he’ll be moving for a while. Danny’s practically strutting when he walks into the bathroom, grinning like a loon in the mirror when he sees the love bites on his chest, at his collar, even one under his right arm. “Nice work, Kelly,” he tells his reflection before wetting a washcloth and padding back to the bedroom and falling back asleep, his arm pressed against Chin’s under the covers. 

*

Because Steve is now a National Hero (Danny hears the capital letters every time someone says it on TV, and his eyes roll almost out of his face), he and Ed get flown back home to Houston with all the honors. The Air Force puts on a show at the airport, and the news crews snap enough pictures that Danny’s seeing spots. The governor is there, and half of the NASA staff showed up. Ed’s family is adorable in matching blue outfits. Kono is there in the same red and white sundress she wore the day she met Steve, and sunglasses that look like she borrowed them from Mrs. Kennedy. Grace refused to wear anything other than the blue jeans Steve had bought her a month ago, and Danny couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Relax,” Chin murmurs at his elbow, and Danny realizes that he’s been bouncing on the balls of his feet as the plane slowly makes its decent. Danny wants to lean back into the solid strength of Chin’s chest, but he manages to stop himself. Chin’s hand brushes the small of Danny’s back and it’s somehow enough. 

“Thanks, babe,” he whispers, and Chin’s smile is beautiful.

Steve walks off the plane and down the steps with all the swagger of a man who just circled the world in a spaceship, but the moment he hits the tarmac and sees Kono, his expression shifts into sheer, unadulterated happiness. Kono breaks ranks, ducking around the barricades set up to keep order, and the photo of her leaping into Steve’s arms, Steve swinging her around and around as they both laugh (and cry, a little), makes the front page of the paper the next morning.   
Danny might cry too, but he’s not going to admit it. 

“Nice job, Danno,” Steve says as he finally makes his way to the NASA section of the crowd, Kono close at his side. 

“You gave me, like, three heart attacks up there, McGarrett,” Danny gripes, but he knows the smile on his face is betraying his joy at having Steve home.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve replies with a laugh and pulls Danny into a bone-crushing hug.

“Not in front of the kids,” he says, but Danny doesn’t let go when Grace takes that as her cue to scream “Welcome home, Uncle Steve!” and wrap her arms around Steve’s waist like an octopus.

“Gracie, I missed you so much,” Steve tells her, picking her up and hugging her close. Kono laughs, open and happy, as Grace starts to tell him about her sleepover with Kono, her plans for tacos at the wedding, her drawing she made of Steve and Ed in space that now adorns Danny’s refrigerator. Danny looks over at Ed’s family, clustered around him like they’re all clustered around Steve, and his heart feels so full it could burst.

But there’s something missing.

“Hey, c’mere,” he says, pulling on Chin’s sleeve so that he’s closer, closing the circle between Danny and Kono. 

“Chin,” Steve says, happy but just a shade cautious. “Thank you, for helping me out up there.”

Chin just smiles at him, a hint of sadness creeping in where only Danny and maybe Kono could see. “You’re family,” he says to Steve, and Steve’s smile can probably be seen from space.

He pulls Chin into a one-armed hug, Grace still sitting on his hip, Kono’s arms circling around the three of them as she laughs. “Damn right,” he tells Chin, his words thick with emotion, and Danny feels all the pieces of his life finally clicking into place like a puzzle.

“Let’s go,” Danny says to the group of them, hoping the crack in his voice doesn’t give away how his heart is singing. “I’ve got twenty pounds of hamburger that won’t grill itself.”

“Lead the way, Danno,” Steve says, and Danny takes his family home.

*

_Epilogue_

The day of the wedding is stunning in the way only a mid-Autumn day in Texas can be - the breeze is fluttering through the trees at the local arboretum - not Grace’s first choice for a venue, but easier to fit a hundred people into than the tiny zoo just outside of town. Grace doesn’t seem to mind the lack of animals; Danny watches her direct half a dozen groomsmen, all of them tough-as-nails fighter pilots and astronauts, with the confidence of a four-star general.

“She’s doing good,” Steve says, peering around Danny’s elbow as the crowd is seated under the shade of the trees. 

“Better than you.”

“Hey, you try not to pass out, waiting around in the sun in your dress uniform,” Steve whines. “It’s hot, right? I’m really hot.” Danny arches his eyebrow.

“You’re really _nervous_.” Danny leads Steve by the elbow to one of the chairs set up off to the side where he and Steve are waiting for the nod from the minister that the service is about to begin. “Breathe, Steve.”

Steve takes a few deep breaths, shakes out his hands. Danny looks up to see Mueller smirking at them from across the aisle. Danny shakes his head, grinning, and his grin grows wider when he sees Chin walking over.

“Hey you,” Danny says, his heart speeding up just a fraction like it always does when Chin is nearby. Danny’s stopped worrying he’s going to have a heart attack and just enjoys the ride as Chin returns his smile warmly. Steve snorts and Danny punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Everything okay on the other side of the aisle?” 

Chin tilts his head, shrugging a little. “Kono’s throwing a little party in the tent, and they threw me out because apparently it’s time to get her into her dress. She probably won’t throw up,but I’m pretty sure she did a shot of tequila when I wasn’t looking,” he says, deadpan as always.

“Hey, where’s my tequila?” Steve looks at Danny with pleading eyes and Danny’s laugh bubbles out of him without warning. He looks over to see at least three NASA employees staring openly at them - Danny bites down on his lip and tries to look anywhere but at Chin. He doesn’t trust himself not to reach out and pull him close. Chin stuffs his hands in his pockets around the same time, like he’s having the same thought. Danny smiles over his shoulder. “Ugh, stop, gross,” Steve whines again and Danny kicks him in his perfectly polished shoe.

*

Danny had told Steve about Chin just days after Steve’s return. Danny told Chin it was because Steve would have guessed it at the most inappropriate time anyway, but really it was because Danny had to tell someone or he’d burst. Steve had been smug and supportive, and Danny had allowed some gloating in return for the warm hug he gave Danny when he was done with his halting, heavily-redacted account of what had happened while Steve was in space. “If anyone finds out, Steve -” he’d muffled against Steve’s shoulder, because Danny was still terrified of what could happen to his career, his custody of Grace, to Chin and Kono, if anyone discovered them.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve had said. “You know I’ve got your back, Danno. I just want you to be happy, man.”

Chin had told Kono the same day, which is a blessing because Danny’s pretty certain that Steve would be terrible at keeping secrets from her, no matter how hard he tried. Danny hadn’t had to push too Chin too much to open up to Kono about the two of them, but it had taken more to get Chin to tell her about Michael, about all he’d lost in the war. “Secrets will kill you, and I kind of like having you around,” he told Chin, driving him home after work that week. 

Chin had been quiet for a few days afterward, and Kono had gone off for a few days alone with Steve. She hadn’t spoken much to Danny before she left, but when they got back she’d cornered him in Chin’s kitchen after dinner one night. “Don’t hurt him,” she’s said plainly. 

“That’s all you’ve got?” Danny had asked, honestly surprised enough to blurt it out without thinking. 

“You want more?”

“No, actually, your face right now is terrifying enough.” Danny put the plates away to avoid looking at the fierce jut of Kono’s chin. “Did you and Steve coordinate speeches, because I’m pretty sure he’s giving this one to Chin out on the patio and I’d bet his is equally taciturn but possibly less scary.”

“Danny,” she’d said, her hands on her hips. “This is not a joke. I’m saying -”

“I’ve been head over heels for your cousin for years, Kono,” Danny interrupted her, turning to lean on the counter Chin had pressed him against just a few days ago, both of them savoring a few hours of alone time while Grace was at school. Danny feels hot all over just thinking about it, about the bruises fading on his chest, about the way had felt after, broken open and raw. “If anyone’s heart’s on the line here, I think it’s mine.”

Kono’s face had softened. “Oh, Danny,” was all she’d said, and it had been easy ever since, easier than it had any right to be. Danny was so grateful for her, for Steve, for the way Grace smiled whenever Chin made Danny laugh. 

They haven’t told Grace yet, but Danny will, soon. It’ll still be a secret, but a secret shared by all the people that mean the world to Danny. 

*

In the end, no one throws up at the wedding. Danny might even cry a little as Chin walks Kono down the aisle, both of them glowing. Kono’s dress is simple, in ivory, with lace sleeves to her elbows that Grace had fawned over. Chin catches Danny’s eyes as they take slow, halting steps to the music of the violinist hired to play for the ceremony. His expression as he puts Kono’s hand in Steve’s is proud and sad and full of hope, all mixed together, and Danny wishes he could put his hand in Chin’s. He settles for standing a fraction too close, their arms touching as Steve and Kono exchange their vows.

In true Air Force fashion, and with an impressed nod to the grads of Wellesley who had flown in for Kono’s wedding, Danny leaves the reception while it’s still in full swing, a sleeping Grace in his arms. “I’ll help you get her home,” Chin says softly from his elbow.

Danny waits to kiss him until they’ve tucked Grace into her bed, still in her party dress, her shoes lined up next to her closet. “Wanted to do that all night,” he breathes, Chin’s lips still moving over his chin, his jaw. 

“Want to know what I’ve wanted to do all night?” Chin says, smiling and Danny waggles his eyebrows. Chin smiles wider, but he pulls away from Danny and walks over to the turntable in the corner. Danny’s confused for a moment until Chin drops a record on the player and drops the needle on a slow, sweet Ella Fitzgerald track. “Dance with me,” Chin holds out his hand and Danny folds their fingers together and steps close enough to wrap Chin in his arms.

“Always, babe,” Danny tells him, swaying to the music. They don’t talk through the song, Danny just enjoying the way Chin fits against him, the feeling of Chin’s hair brushing his cheek.

“Kono’s room is going to be empty tomorrow,” Danny says softly as the song fades out, shifts to something sweeter, more soulful. 

“Hmm?” 

“I’m just saying,” Danny notes, feigning nonchalance as Chin’s hands splay over his back, turning them slowly around the room. “With Kono and Steve moving around the block, you’ll be kicking around your house all alone, and your place is way closer to Gracie’s school…”

Chin stops dancing and Danny leans back enough to look him in the eyes. “Danny, are you suggesting -”

“Two bachelors sharing the rent,” Danny says, grinning. “You’re an engineer - three bedrooms, three people, just makes good math.” Chin stares at him. “If, I mean. If that’s what you want.”

“Danny,” Chin breathes out, presses his forehead to Danny’s. “It’s what I want, but what what if -”

“No what-ifs,” Danny tells him. “You and me, Gracie, Steve and Kono coming over every other day to borrow things and eat all our food. Maybe we’ll get a dog.” It’s the prettiest picture in the world, and Danny can see it reflected back at him in Chin’s watery eyes. “What do you say, Kelly? Do you want to make an honest man out of me?”

“I do,” Chin says, barely a whisper.

“Good. I do too.” 

They dance until the needle skips on the record, in the dark of Danny’s living room.

**Author's Note:**

> This story pulls from a number of factual events in the early history of the US space program. [The Gemini IV mission](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_4) happened pretty much just like this, and in the story I’ve swapped Steve McGarrett in for [James McDivitt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McDivitt), an Air Force test pilot with a 20 year career at NASA. (Sorry, Jim! You’re great, but I needed some Steve!) The Ed in this story is [Ed White](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Higgins_White), first American to do a space walk, who died along with Gus Grissom and Roger Chafee in the tragic command module fire during the 1967 test of Apollo 1. Mueller is [George Mueller](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mueller_\(NASA\)), a brilliant engineer and administrator who was in charge of all NASA manned space flights from 1963 - 1969. 
> 
> YAY SCIENCE!


End file.
